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GLOVES,  PAST  AND  PRESENT 


GLOVES 

PAST  AND  PRESENT 


By 

WILLARD  M.  SMITH 


>  * 


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NEW  YORK 
THE  SHERWOOD  PRESS,  Inc. 

1917 


COPYRIGHT,   1917 

BY    WILLARD    M.    SMITH 

All    rights    reserved 


«,    •  • 


»  * 


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PREFACE 

A/fOST  MEN,  apparently,  take  their  gloves 
-*-■-  for  granted.  In  these  days  the  little  re- 
finements of  civilization  are  accepted  among 
us  without  a  thought;  but  in  so  doing 
we  lose  a  great  deal  of  enjoyment  which  we 
never  were  intended  to  overlook.  Least  of  all 
are  our  gloves  commonplace.  Mr.  Chesterton 
has  something  to  say  about  Tremendous 
Trifles.  To  my  mind,  he  might  have  been  talk- 
ing about  gloves.  If  you  choose  to  think  of 
them  as  trifles,  then  they  are  tremendous. 

For  thirty  years  I  have  devoted  myself  to 
the  practical  problems  of  the  glove  industry, 
and  my  connection  with  one  of  the  substantial 
firms  of  master-merchant-glovers  in  the  world 
has  taught  me  how  little  gloves  are  known  or 
appreciated  by  the  millions  of  persons  who  buy 

N  them  and  wear  them.  The  pursuit  of  glove  lore 
2  — the  historic  romance  of  the  glove — has  long 

§)  since  been  with  me  a  selfish  recreation.  Now 
I  desire  to  share  it,  as  Avell  as  the  practical 
knowledge,  with  all  men  and  women  who  have 
missed  seizing  upon  the  real  relation  which 
gloves  bear  to  life. 

In  the  work  of  gathering  together  and  ar- 
ranging the  material  in  this  book,  I  wish  to 
acknowledge  my  gratitude  to  Miss  Marion 
Savage,  who  has  collaborated  faithfully  with 
me,  and  has  shared  in  no  small  degree  my  own 
enthusiasm  for  gloves,  past  and  present. 

WILLAKD  M.  SMITH. 
June,  1917. 

300834 


> 


^ 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Whv  Gloves 1 

II.  Ancient  History  of  Gloves     -       -  9 

III.  The  Language  of  Gloves                  -  18 

IV.  How  Gloves  Came  to  Grenoble    -  30 
V.  Glovers  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  41 

VI.  Gloves  in  Many  Marts  52 

VII.  From  Artist  to  Artisan  -    67 

VIII.  Annonay  and  Its  Industry    -       -       79 

IX.  The  Gloves  We  Buy   -       -       -       -    90 

X.  Gloves  of  the  Hour       -       -       -       107 


GLOVES,  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Chapter  I. 
WHY    GLOVES? 

"None  other  symbol — the  cross  excepted — has  so  entered 
into  the  feelings  and  the  affections  of  men,  or  so  ruled  and 
bound  in  integrity  and  right  the  transactions  of  life,  as 
the  glove." — William  8.  Beck. 

IT  is  no  unusual  thing  to  meet  American 
women  who  are  connoisseurs  of  the  hand- 
made laces  brought  to  this  country  from 
abroad.  Laces,  like  painting  or  sculpture, 
are  an  object  of  study;  they  have  been  raised 
to  the  level  of  the  fine  arts.  But  how  often 
do  we  come  across  a  woman — it  matters  not 
how  intelligent  she  may  be — who  has  any  real 
standards  to  guide  her  in  the  selection  of 
gloves?  Whether  Ave  have  need,  in  a  business 
sense,  of  expert  knowledge  on  this  subject 
or  not,  nearly  everybody  spends  enough 
monev  A^earlv  on  this  single  detail  of  dress 
to  be  interested  to  know  just  what  he  is 
getting.  Yet,  there  is  scarcely  any  other 
department  of  merchandise  with  which  the 
average  person  has  so  hasty  and  superficial 
an  acquaintance.  Nor  is  this  by  any  means 
the  layman's  own  fault  entirely. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  fabrics 
which  go  into  the  making  of  women's  suits 
and  gowns;  shoes,  men's  shirts,  carpets  and 
furs:  we  recognize  that  all  these  long  have 
been  a  matter  of  public  education.  Where  is 
the  woman  who  does  not  know  the  leading 
materials  for  coats  and  dresses?  She  may 
live  far  from  the  great  commercial  centres, 


2  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

but  her  women's  magazine,  published  in  New 
York,  Philadelphia  or  Chicago,  brings  her 
descriptions  by  an  expert,  with  colored,  photo- 
graphic reproductions,  of  the  fashionable 
novelties.  As  for  the  experienced  city 
shopper,  if  she  were  tested  with  her  eyes  shut, 
simply  by  touching  the  fabric  she  could 
identify  it  in  most  cases  and  could  readilv 
distinguish  between  goods  of  fine  and  inferior 
quality. 

In  the  carpet  department  not  infrequently 
a  customer  talks  intelligently  of  "three 
frame"  and  "six  frame"  Brussels,  or  insists 
upon  being  shown  uhand-cut"  Wilton.  Even 
the  male  shopper  is  not  so  indifferent  in  these 
days  as  not  to  know  the  names  of  the  several 
varieties  of  fine  cottons  of  which  his  shirts 
are  made.  He  is  aware  of  the  difference 
between  plain  woven  madras  and  crepe 
madras;  he  may  prefer  cotton  cheviot,  and 
will  stipulate  whether  it  shall  be  the  Oxford 
or  the  "basket"  weave.  But  if  he  be  really 
fastidious,  the  chances  are  that  he  will 
demand  "soisette."  In  the  last  few  vears  an 
amazing  amount  of  style  and  seasonal  variety 
have  been  introduced  into  shoes  and  furs. 
The  result  is  that  in  these  lines  we  feel 
obliged  to  be  informed  up  to  the  minute.  But, 
while  fabrics  and  fashions  in  gloves  con- 
stantly are  changing,  how  much  discrimina- 
tion do  most  persons  display  in  the  selecting 
of  this  equally  important  item  of  apparel? 

A  well-dressed  woman  enters  the  glove 
department  of  a  large  shop  on  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York.  She  may  be  an  independent  pro- 
fessional woman  or  she  mav  be  the  wife  or 
daughter  of  a  man  of  means.    In  either  case 


Why  Gloves  3 

she  should  be  concerned  to  know  what  value 
she  receives  for  the  money  she  spends.  She 
asks  for  mocha  gloves;  but  finding  these 
rather  more  expensive  than  she  had  sup- 
posed, she  may  be  persuaded  to  accept  a 
sueded  sheepskin  under  the  misnomer  of 
mocha,  which  substitute — could  she  but  know 
it — is  a  fraud,  as  even  the  finest  suedes  in 
point  of  durability  are  invariably  inferior 
to,  while  they  strikingly  resemble,  the 
Arabian  mocha.  The  fallacy  consists  in  her 
not  being  educated  to  know  that  it  is  the 
genuine  mocha  which  she  requires  and  for 
which  she  should  be  perfectly  willing  to  pay. 
The  unqualified  superiority  of  real  mocha  to 
sueded  sheepskin  is  worth  every  cent  of  the 
difference  she  would  put  into  the  purchase. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  man  has  been  told 
that  the  only  serviceable  heavy  glove  for  com- 
mon wear  is  the  cape  glove.  He  insists,  there- 
fore, upon  having  the  genuine  cape — a  name 
originally  and  properly  used  to  designate 
gloves  made  of  superior  skins  from  the  Cape 
district  of  South  Africa.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  soft,  pliable,  widely-worn  glove  in 
various  weights,  now  commercially  known 
as  cape,  is  made  from  skins  grown  in  many 
lands — principally  lamb,  tanned  and  dressed 
by  the  "napa  dipped"  method.  In  conse- 
quence of  having  wool  hide,  these  skins  are 
not  so  tough  as  the  Cape  Hope  goat  with  the 
hair  hide.  One  pays  less  for  them  than  for 
the  real  cape,  but,  for  ordinary  appear- 
ance, they  are  a  fair  substitute,  and  their 
wearing  qualities  undoubtedly  meet  the 
average  requirement.  A  practical  saving  of 
this  sort  the  public  should  be  taught  to 
appreciate. 


4  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

But  not  for  material  reasons  alone  should 
gloves  be  given  a  prominent  place  in  the  cur- 
riculum of  popular  "uplift."  In  the  most 
obvious  sense  they  are  too  little  known,  too 
vaguely  appreciated,  to  be  sure;  and  yet,  the 
satisfaction  of  being  well-gloved  consists  in 
something  more  than  merely  the  delightful 
sensation  of  having  one's  hands  neatly, 
warmly  and  substantially  covered.  We  think 
of  gloves  first,  no  doubt,  as  a  daily  necessity. 
But  we  also  value  the  finer  qualities  as  a 
mark  of  elegance.  Beautiful  gloves  impart 
the  coup  de  grace  to  the  formal  costume  of 
either  man  or  woman.  At  the  same  time, 
clinging  to  this  luxury,  like  a  perfume  of 
old,  we  are  dimly  conscious  of  an  aura  of 
half-forgotten  associations,  linking  the  glove 
with  royalty,  chivalry  and  romance;  with 
famous  affairs  of  honor,  with  the  pomp  and 
ceremonial  of  the  Church,  with  countless 
dramatic  episodes  in  history  and  literature. 

How  does  it  happen  that,  instinctively,  we 
invest  this  trifle  with  so  much  meaning?  Can 
it  be  that  we  are  the  repository  of  memories 
of  past  splendors,  invoked  by  a  familiar 
object  which  has  all  but  lost  its  symbolic  and 
poetic  significance  of  ancient  times?  Even 
to-day  the  wearing  of  gloves  lends  to  the 
individual  a  sense  of  dignity  and  personal 
distinction.  Like  Mrs.  Wilfer,  of  Dickens 
fame,  our  grandeur  is  increased  by  our  gloves. 

In  the  pages  which  follow  we  shall  dis- 
cover that  the  background  of  our  subject  is 
one  of  the  richest  and  most  picturesque  we 
could  desire  to  explore.  Gloves  have  deeply 
affected  the  lives  of  human  beings  from  the 
very  earliest  periods.    They  have  descended 


Why  Gloves  5 

to  us  from  a  remote  antiquity,  and  are  in  very 
fact  our  inherited  title  to  nobility,  for  they 
were  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  princely  prel- 
ates, the  kings  and  over-lords  of  the  past, 
whose  chief  insignia  and  most  treasured 
badge  of  honor  was  the  glove.  To  compre- 
hend all  that  they  have  brought  with  them 
down  through  the  centuries  we  must  retrace 
a  vast  deal  of  history,  and  let  our  imagina- 
tions play  over  scenes  and  customs  far 
removed  from  our  own  day. 

We  shall  find  the  glove  intimately  bound 
up  with  the  development  of  social  usages  in 
every  land.  To  solemn  observances  in  which 
the  glove  filled  a  special  role,  much  of  the 
impressiveness  of  the  stately  rites  of  the 
mediaeval  church  was  due.  The  white  linen 
glove  on  the  hand  of  a  bishop  literally  repre- 
sented to  the  people  the  stainless  purity  of 
the  revered  palm  raised  in  benediction.  The 
glove  itself  was  holy.  No  layman  dared  to 
clothe  his  hands  in  the  presence  of  the  clergy. 
Kings  and  the  militaiw,  however,  wore  gloves 
with  quite  a  different  meaning.  In  appear- 
ance, also,  their  gloves  were  utterly  unlike 
those  consecrated  for  religious  use.  Of  heavy 
leather,  elaborately  tooled  or  decorated,  or 
the  mailed  gauntlet  which  formed  part  of  a 
warrior's  armor,  they  signified  authority, 
power,  and  were  often  conveyed  from  one 
prince  to  another  as  an  expression  of  hos- 
tility, or  as  a  promise  of  good  faith. 

Princely  etiquette,  indeed,  revolved  about 
the  glove  to  such  a  degree  that  the  latter 
became,  as  it  were,  the  proxy  of  its  master, 
his  embassador,  the  mute  herald  of  the  royal 
will.    What  a  high  ethical  bond  and  pledge 


6  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 


of  honor  that  leathern  effigy  of  a  ruler's  hand 
actually  constituted!  And  as  the  glove 
descended  with  the  customs  of  feudal  tenure 
from  sovereign  to  liege  lord,  and  became 
gradually  the  regalia  of  a  growing  landed 
aristocracy,  how  the  manners  of  semi-bar- 
barous Europe  were  moulded  and  softened 
by  the  glove!  At  first  Ave  find  it  the  jealous 
device  of  the  royal  few.  Then  it  becomes  the 
badge  of  superiority  among  the  over-lords. 
Their  followers  receive  it;  and,  slowly, 
through  the  centuries,  this  fascinating  bit  of 
personal  apparel  works  like  leaven  until  it 
at  last  is  recognized  as  the  mark  of  gentlefolk 
everywhere.  It  spreads  in  proportion- as 
liberty  and  culture  are  diffused  among  the 
people.  Follow  the  progress  of  the  glove,  and 
you  trace  the  growth  in  enlightenment  and 
refinement  of  the  nations.  One  of  the  true 
forerunners  of  democracy — as  democracy 
means  the  elevating,  not  the  levelling,  of  man- 
kind— the  glove  takes  its  place  among  the 
civilizing  forces  of  the  world. 

No  small  part  of  the  importance  which 
attaches  to  the  subject  of  these  investigations 
lies  in  the  relation  gloves  bear  to  the  history 
of  modern  industry.  We  shall  find  that  the 
position  of  the  glove-makers  among  the 
mediaeval  craftsmen  was  unique,  and  of  the 
utmost  consequence  to  the  industrial  evolu- 
tion of  Europe.  The  life  of  a  French  city  has 
depended  for  many  centuries  upon  the 
development  of  the  glove  drama.  And,  in 
their  turn,  what  have  not  the  glove-makers 
of  Grenoble  meant  to  the  wealth  and  artistic 
prestige  of  France?  In  the  annals  of  the 
world's  trade — from  the  early  days  of  barter 


Why  Gloves  7 

and  exchange  down  to  the  present  methods 
of  international  commerce — gloves  have 
always  been  conspicuous.  The  product  in 
itself  is  worthy  of  our  wonder.  We  may 
marvel  at  the  beautiful  finish,  that  anything 
so  delicate  can  also  be  so  strong;  we  may 
admire  the  style,  the  cut,  the  fit  of  the  glove 
of  to-day.  And  yet,  the  perfection  of  the  glove 
art  has  by  no  means  been  reached. 

To  the  simple  prototype  of  four  fingers, 
thumb,  palm,  back  and  wrist,  the  glove- 
makers  of  our  time  have  added  all  that  makes 
the  present  glove  elegant  beyond  any  which 
has  preceded  it.  Here  we  have,  perhaps,  the 
most  interesting  article  of  personal  apparel 
regardless  of  the  wearer's  sex.  For  a  glove 
is  a  glove,  whether  it  graces  a  woman's 
slender  hand  or  a  man's  stouter  member. 
The  same  cannot  be  claimed  for  the  shoe — 
at  least,  not  since  the  passing  of  the  mannish 
girl.  The  high-arched,  French-heeled,  parti- 
colored footgear  which  to-day  is  patronized 
by  the  feminine  species  has  little  in  common 
with  the  broad-built,  low-last  article  in  which 
the  male  walks  comfortably  about  his  busi- 
ness. The  tradition  of  the  glove,  however,  is 
less  erratic,  and  equally  applicable  to  man 
or  woman. 

It  is  perfectly  possible  to  out-countenance 
boredom  by  turning  to  our  simplest,  our  most 
casually  accepted,  possessions.  Even  our 
gloves  may  kindle  in  us  delight  by  their 
beauty,  or  may  plunge  us  into  the  mysteries 
of  the  past.  Gloves  are  history.  Gloves  are 
an  art.  Far  from  being  the  humble  member 
of  our  wardrobe  we  sometimes  have  care- 
lessly supposed  them  to  be,  they  are  of  exceed- 


\ 


8  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

ingly  ancient  lineage,  and  have  retained  much 
of  their  original  regal  and  aristocratic 
character.  Though  once  a  symbol  and  a  cult, 
gloves  have  been  adapted  to  our  Twentieth 
Century  needs,  and  the  subtleties  of  a  new 
age  are  finding  expression  in  the  tireless 
multiplying  of  the  finest  gloves  to  suit  every 
conceivable  occasion. 

The  glove  which  encases  vour  hand — no 
matter  how  much  a  part  of  yourself  through 
dailv  familiaritv  it  mav  seem — never  can  be 
anything  but  a  stranger  to  you  and  unappre- 
ciated, until  you  know  gloves.  Even  the  sense 
of  politeness  and  prestige  which  you  enjoy 
is  not  enough;  the  glove  legend  also  should 
be  vours.  Not  without  good  reason  are  we 
inspired  to  live  up  to  our  gloves. 


Chapter  II. 
ANCIENT  HISTORY  OF   GLOVES 

"A  man  plucked  off  his  glove  and  gave  it  to  his  neighbor: 
and  this  was  for  a  testimony  in  Israel." — Old  Testament, 
Chaldaic  Version:  Ruth:  ch.  iv.,  vs.  ?. 

GLOVES  are  so  ancient  that  the  first 
mention  of  them  in  literature  is  to  be 
found  in  a  great  classic  of  three  thousand 
years  ago — the  Bible.  Zealous  disputants  in 
all  kinds  of  causes  have  had  a  trick  of  twist- 
ing Holy  Writ  to  serve  the  purpose  of  their 
arguments.  But  in  appropriating  the  above 
lines  from  the  Book  of  Ruth,  the  writer  has 
not  been  guilty  of  taking  liberties  with  the 
Scriptures — even  though  the  passage  does 
not  read  as  he  has  quoted  it  in  the  King 
James  Version. 

Turning  to  the  authorized  text,  we  find: 
"Now  this  was  the  manner  in  former  times 
in  Israel  concerning  redeeming  and  concern- 
ing changing,  for  to  confirm  all  things; 
a  man  plucked  off  his  shoe,  and  gave  it  to 
his  neighbor,  and  this  was  for  a  testimony 
in  Israel.  Therefore  the  kinsman  said  unto 
Boaz,  Buy  it  for  thee.  So  he  drew  off  his  shoe." 

A  certain  learned  Hebrew  of  high  literary 
attainments,  M.  Josephs,  a  noted  authority 
in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
in  dealing  with  this  passage  bids  us  follow 
the  Targum,  or  Chaldaic  version  of  the  Old 
Testament,  which  renders,  instead  of  shoe, 
the  word  glove.  He  reminds  us  that  the  men 
who  wrote  the  Targum  lived  fifteen  hundred 
years  before  the  translators  of  our  English 
Bible;  that  their  rendition  grew  directly  out 


10  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

of  the  oral  interpretations  and  paraphrases 
of  the  Scriptures  read  in  the  synagogues — a 
custom  which  began,  probably,  soon  after  the 
return  of  the  Jews  from  captivity.  The 
Targumists,  of  course,  were  much  closer  to 
the  original  Hebrew  usages  than  the  mediaeval 
scribes.  The  disputed  phrase  in  their  ver- 
sion, narthek  yad,  means  "the  covering  of 
the  right  hand."  I  It  is  derived  from  the 
Hebrew  text,  nangal,  which,  employed 
verbally,  means  to  close  or  enclose.  The 
expression,  nangal  regel,  is,  literally,  "to 
enclose  the  foot"  and  signifies  a  shoe.  The 
use  of  nangal  alone,  however,  as  a  noun, 
always  implied  an  article  enclosing  the 
hand — in  other  words,  a  glove.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  writer  of  the  Chaldaic 
version  accepted  the  term  as  a  hand-covering, 
not  a  foot-covering — even  specifying  that  the 
glove  given  as  a  testimony  in  Israel  was 
drawn  off  the  right  hand. 

Both  ancient  and  modern  rabbinical 
scholars,  we  are  told,  agree  in  rendering  the 
word  from  the  original  as  "glove,"  not  shoe. 
And  Joel  Levy,  a  distinguished  German 
translator,  gave,  instead  of  shoe,  his  pic- 
turesque, native  idiom  of  hand-schuh  (hand- 
shoe),  by  which  gloves  are  known  in  Germany 
to  this  dav. 

Added  to  etymological  testimony,  more- 
over, is  the  evidence  of  ancient  custom. 
Gloves,  in  the  symbolical  sense,  have  been 
employed  as  a  token  of  good  faith  as  far 
back  as  historv  can  be  traced.  The  shoe,  on 
the  other  hand,  never  is  used  figuratively  in 
Holy  Writ  except  to  express  humility  or 
supine  obedience.     The  man  who  wished  to 


Ancient  History  of  Gloves  11 

make  a  compact  with  his  neighbor,  as  Boaz 
when  he  bought  the  lands  of  Ruth,  must  offer 
[his  glove  as  pledge  in  the  transaction.  The 
very  same  practice  is  common  in  the  Orient 
to-day. 

I  Challenge  by  the  glove  also  appears  to 
have  been  customary  from  antiquity.  In  the 
one  hundredth  and  eighth  Psalm,  the  prophet 
in  an  ecstacy  of  triumph  cries :  "Over  Edom 
will  I  cast  out  my  glove!"  Had  this  warrior 
of  the  spirit  merely  thrown  a  shoe  over  the 
city  he  had  vowed  to  reclaim  to  Jehovah, 
what  boastful  promise  would  there  have 
been  in  that? 

Among  the  Jews,  however,  three  thou- 
sand years  ago,  gloves  were  by  no  means  in 
common  use.  Probably  they  were  worn  only 
by  men  of  high  rank,  and  then  solely  on 
ceremonial  occasions.  We  have  reason  to 
suppose  that  kings  wore  them,  for  in  the 
mural  paintings  of  Thebes  ambassadors  are 
depicted  bearing  from  some  far  country* 
gifts  of  gloves.  The  women  certainly  did  not 
wear  them,  for  they  are  not  mentioned  in  the 
exhaustive  list  of  "bravery,"  enumerated  by 
Isaiah  (Chapter  III.),  the  vainglorious  fal- 
lals of  which  the  daughters  of  Zion  in  their 
pride  were  to  be  despoiled  on  the  Day  of 
Doom.  "Feet-rings,  neck  chains,  thin  veils, 
tires  or  bonnets,  zones  or  girdles,  jewels  for 
the  nostrils,  embroidered  robes,  tunics,  trans- 
parent garments,  fine  linen  vests,  armlets" — 
all  such  fineries  as  these  must  the  fair  Israel- 
ites relinquish  at  the  sound  of  the  last  trump. 
Surely,  had  gloves  been  among  their  vanities, 
these  also  must  have  been  confiscated  by  the 
Inexorable  Judge ! 


12  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

Nearly  a  century  after  the  Book  of  Kuth 
was  written,  Homer  relates  how  he  came 
upon  Laertes,  the  father  of  Ulysses,  working 
in  his  garden  (for  he  was  a  farmer)  "while 
gloves  secured  his  hands  to  shield  them  from 
the  thorns."  So,  we  know  that  the  early 
Greeks  wore  gloves.  It  is  striking  to  note 
that  they  employed  them,  too,  for  humble 
and  useful  purposes.  They  were  not  monopo- 
lized by  priests  and  kings.  However,  we  are 
given  no  hint  how  Laertes'  gloves  were  shaped 
nor  of  what  materials  they  were  made. 
Probably  they  resembled  the  modern  mitten, 
for  it  is  not  until  under  the  Eoman  emperors 
that  we  actually  learn  that  gloves  were  made 
with  fingers.  These  were  called,  specially, 
digitalid;  to  distinguish  them  from  the 
chirothocae,  or  fingerless  variety. 

Virgil  makes  reference  to  gauntlets  worn 
at  the  Trojan  contests,  as  "the  gloves  of 
death";  and  he  describes  gloves  worn  by 
Eryx,  "composed  of  seven  folds  of  the  thickest 
bulFs  hide,  sewn  and  stiffened  with  knots  of 
lead  and  iron." 

The  gloves  of  the  Persians,  we  may  sus- 
pect, were  not  of  the  warlike  type,  but  were 
sported  simply  for  luxury  and  display.  Zeno- 
phon  who,  somebody  has  remarked,  "had  the 
courage  of  his  dislikes,"  despised  the  ancient 
Persians  and  stigmatized  them  as  effeminate 
because  they  gloried  in  their  gloves.  In  his 
Cyropaedia  he  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that  on 
one  occasion  Cyrus  was  actually  known  to 
go  forth  "without  his  gloves"! 

Varro,  contemporary  of  Cicero,  observes 
in  his  De  Re  Rustica  that  "olives  gathered 
by  the  naked  hand  are  preferable  to  those 


Ancient  History  of  Gloves  13 

pulled  with  gloves  on."  The  Epicureans  evi- 
dently had  adopted  the  theory  that  fruit,  to 
be  fully  enjo}red,  should  not  even  be  handled 
in  the  plucking.  Again,  among  the  Eomans, 
we  find  gloves  an  article  of  utility,  worn  by 
agriculturists — though  it  is  likely  that  these 
hand-coverings  were  in  the  shape  of  mittens 
and  not  of  the  digitalia  style.  To  the  latter 
appear  to  have  been  attached  far  greater 
prestige. 

At  the  same  time,  the  fingered  gloves  also 
had  come  to  be  used  for  a  practical  protec- 
tion. Pliny,  the  younger,  speaking  of  the 
private  secretary  of  his  illustrious  uncle, 
writes:  "His  amanuensis"  (who  accom- 
panied him  on  his  notable  journey  to  Mount 
Vesuvius)  "wore  gloves  upon  his  hands  that 
winter,  lest  the  severity  of  the  weather  should 
make  him  lose  any  time"  (from  his  duties  as 
scribe).  It  is  to  gloves,  then,  that  we  are 
indebted  in  part  for  some  of  the  most  remark- 
able passages  in  the  works  of  the  celebrated 
Roman  naturalist,  whose  scientific  enthu- 
siasm eventually  cost  him  his  life  in  the 
eruption  of  Vesuvius,  79  a.d. 

Not  until  the  age  of  Musonious,  the  philoso- 
pher, who  lived  near  the  close  of  the  first 
century  of  the  Christian  era,  do  we  find 
gloves  among  the  Romans  falling  into  dis- 
repute. Musonious  ejaculates :  "It  is  shame- 
ful that  persons  in  perfect  health  should 
clothe  their  hands  with  soft  and  hairy  cover- 
ings!" The  denunciation  of  the  dress- 
reformers  of  those  days,  however,  seems  to 
have  had  as  little  effect  in  stemming  the  tide 
of  fashion  as  in  our  times. 


14  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

A  truly  revolting  use  to  which  gloves  are 
said  to  have  put — if  we  may  believe  certain 
tales  of  the  famous  story-teller,  Athenseus 
(200  a.d.) — is  described  in  a  bit  of  ancient 
fiction  in  which  he  relates  that  "a  well-known 
glutton,"  one  of  his  own  contemporaries, 
"always  came  to  the  table  with  gloves  upon 
his  hands,  that  he  might  be  able  to  handle 
and  eat  the  meat  while  it  was  hot,  and  devour 
more  than  the  rest  of  the  company."  No 
wonder  the  early  Fathers  of  the  Church 
looked  upon  gloves  as  vicious  and  corrupting ! 
But  their  biting  invective  was  directed  prin- 
cipally against  the  effeminancy  of  those  who 
fell  victim  to  the  pleasurable  practice,  and 
about  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century 
ecclesiastical  authority  forbade  the  monks 
from  wearing  any  gloves  save  those  made 
of  the  tough,  unyielding  sheep-skin.  Such,  it 
was  thought,  could  not  possibly  afford  the 
brethren  any  sensuous  enjoyment,  nor  tempt 
them  into  love  of  luxuries. 

There  is  an  ancient  story  of  Saint  Gudula, 
patroness  of  Brussels,  which  well  illustrates 
the  early  Christian  distrust  of  gloves.  In 
Butler's  Legends  of  the  Saints,  it  is  related 
of  this  holv  woman — who  died  in  712  a.d. — 
that  one  day,  kneeling  at  prayers  barefooted, 
one  of  the  monks,  moved  to  compassion,  "put 
his  gloves  upon  her  feet"  to  protect  them 
from  the  cold  stones  of  the  floor.  St.  Gu- 
dula, however,  snatched  off  the  offending  ar- 
ticles and  contemptuously  tossed  them  ceiling 
high.  And  there  they  remained,  says  the 
the  legend,  miraculously  suspended  in  mid- 
air for  one  hour. 

The  first  legal  enactment  concerning  gloves 


Ancient  History  of  Gloves  15 

occurs  in  the  records  of  France.  About  790, 
Emperor  Charlemagne  granted  unlimited 
rights  of  hunting  to  the  abbots  and  monks 
of  Sithin  for  the  purpose  of  procuring  deer 
skins  for  making  covers  for  their  books,  and 
also  for  gloves  and  girdles.  The  bishops, 
however,  grew  to  feel  that  theirs  should  be 
the  exclusive  privilege  of  wearing  gloves  of 
such  fine  quality;  and  by  the  Council  of  Aix, 
in  the  reign  of  Louis,  Le  Debonnaire,  the 
inferior  clergy  were  ordered  to  abstain  from 
deer  skin  and  to  wear  only  sheep  skin,  as 
was  formerly  deemed  fitting  for  monks. 

In  England  gloves  virtually  "came  over 
with  the  Conqueror."  The  French  importa- 
tion— which  several  centuries  later  was  to 
be  the  cause  of  such  intense  commercial 
rivalry  between  the  two  countries — was  the 
mailed  glove  of  stout  deer  or  sheep  skin,  with 
joined  plates  of  metal  affixed  to  the  back  and 
fingers.  The  early  Saxons,  however,  wore 
gloves  of  a  rude  sort,  for  the  derivation  of 
the  word  from  gluf  is  distinctly  Saxon,  and 
they  are  mentioned  in  the  epic  of  Beowulf, 
composed  in  the  seventh  century,  a.d. 
William  S.  Beck  thinks  that  the  early  Britons 
may  have  been  quick  to  appreciate  the  com- 
fort afforded  by  the  gloves  worn  by  their 
Konian  conquerors.  It  is  known  for  a  fact 
that  the  Britons  of  that  age  wore  boots  of 
untanned  leather,  and  it  should  be  no  tax 
upon  the  imagination  to  suppose  that  if  they 
protected  one  extremity  they  probably  did 
the  other. 

But  Professor  Boyd  Dawkins,  without  a 
doubt,  has  pushed  the  history  of  the  glove 
farthest  back  of  any  antiquarian.     Profes- 


16  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

sor  Dawkins  assures  us  that  the  cavemen 
wore  gloves.  He  actually  defines  their  style; 
they  were  "not  of  ordinary  size,"  he  tells  us, 
"but  reaching  even  to  the  elbows,  anticipat- 
ing by  untold  ages  the  multi-button  gloves 
of  the  Victorian  era."  Now  just  when  did 
these  pre-historic,  glove- wearing  men  live? 
Another  eminent  geologist  holds  that  they 
inhabited  the  south  of  France  before  they 
were  driven  forth  by  the  excruciating  cold  of 
the  glacial  period.  It  is  impossible  accurately 
to  fix  the  date  of  the  great  ice  age ;  Dr.  Croll, 
however,  and  other  celebrated  scientists, 
appear  to  agree  that  it  began  about  240,000 
years  ago,  that  it  lasted  about  160,000  years 
and  ended  someAvhat  over  80,000  vears  since. 

Here,  then,  is  an  antiquity  for  gloves 
which  should  satisfy  our  fondest  ambitions! 
This  theorv  also  restores  to  France  with  a 
vengeance  the  original  prestige  for  glove- 
making  of  which  that  country  is  so  jealous. 
Theory,  should  we  say?  The  cavemen's 
gloves,  as  we  are  distinctly  told,  were  made 
of  roughly  dressed  skins,  sewn  with  elaborate 
bone  needles;  and  an  unmistakable  drawing 
of  such  a  glove  was  discovered  by  Professor 
Dawkins,  rudely  etched  upon  a  bone,  found 
among  pre-glacial  relics. 

The  glove,  accordingly,  dates  from  the 
twilight  of  mankind.  The  ancient  peoples 
wore  gloves;  and  by  the  tenth  century  in 
Europe  we  find  them  in  fairly  general  use — 
to  some  degree  as  a  practical  protection  and 
hand-covering,  but,  more  strikingly,  as  the 
badge  of  royal  or  ecclesiastical  authority 
and  dignity. 

The  gentler  sex,  however,  at  that  time  had 


Ancient  History  of  Gloves  17 

by  no  means  come  into  their  own,  so  far  as 
gloves  were  concerned.  Among  the  early 
nations  men  seem  to  have  enjoyed  the 
monopoly  of  this  article  of  dress,  and  the 
reason  is  plain  to  see,  when  we  remember 
that  gloves,  in  those  days,  were  worn  almost 
exclusively  as  part  of  the  regalia  of  public 
office.  The  daughters  of  Israel,  and  the  ladies 
of  Persia,  Greece,  Rome  and  mediaeval 
Europe,  adopted  the  voluminous  sleeve  which 
came  down  over  the  hand  and  rendered 
gloves,  for  practical  purposes,  unnecessary. 
A  manuscript  of  the  tenth  century,  however, 
describes  a  hand-covering  worn  by  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  lady  which  resembled  a  muffler  pro- 
vided with  a  separate  division  for  the  thumb. 
This  was  reproduced  by  Planche  in  his  His- 
tory of  British  Costume,  and  is  colored  blue. 
But  the  long,  flowing  sleeves  were  customary, 
and  were  even  worn  by  both  sexes — men  in 
the  ordinary  walks  of  life,  apparently,  being 
compelled  to  content  themselves  with  sharing 
the  feminine  expediency  for  keeping  the 
hands  warnilv  covered.  For  a  man  to  be 
gloveless  at  that  period  certainly  spelled 
humiliation ! 

It  was  not  until  the  thirteenth  century  that 
the  ladies  of  Europe  blossomed  forth  in 
gloves — not  of  the  mitten  variety,  but  boast- 
ing four  fingers  as  well  as  a  thumb.  The  first 
to  be  introduced  for  the  fair  sex  were  made 
of  linen,  of  simple  design,  and  reached  to  the 
elbows  to  accommodate  the  short-sleeved 
gowns  of  the  period.  Not  before  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time,  however,  did  the  elaborately 
embroidered,  be  jeweled  and  perfumed  glove 
captivate  woman's  fancy  and  satisfy  her 
feminine  dreams  of  beauty  and  extravagance. 


Chapter  III. 
THE  LANGUAGE  OF  GLOVES 

"Right,  Caxon,  right  as  my  glove!  By-the-by,  I  fancy  that 
phrase  comes  from  the  custom  of  pledging  a  glove  as  a  sign 
of  irrefragable  faith."— The  Antiquary:  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

WE  are  so  matter  of  fact  in  these  days 
that,  rarely,  if  ever,  do  we  speak  in 
symbols.  The  elaborate  code  of  the  glove 
has  almost  entirely  dropped  out  of  use.  "And 
speaks  all  languages  the  rose,"  the  poet 
reminds  us,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the 
most  romantic  of  flowers  ever  conveyed  such 
wealth  of  meaning,  even  between  tongue-tied 
lovers,  as  the  glove.  Certainly,  in  addition, 
the  latter  has  expressed  a  far  greater  variety 
of  lofty  sentiments  not  connected  with  affairs 
of  the  heart.  In  the  Church,  on  the  throne, 
in  civil  law,  on  the  bench,  in  private  breaches 
of  honor,  at  festivals  of  rejoicing  and  in  the 
last  solemn  rites  accorded  to  the  dead,  gloves 
for  many  centuries  were  an  important  part 
of  the  ceremonial,  and  still,  to-day,  are  not 
without  meaning. 

Sometimes  it  is  claimed  that  gloves  became 
a  symbol  in  the  Church  long  before  kings 
singled  them  out  to  embody  a  monarch's  good 
faith  or  the  royal  consent.  Of  course  kings 
wore  gloves  before  the  Christian  Church 
came  into  being.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
ancients  seem  to  have  attached  less  alle- 
gorical significance  to  gloves  and  to  have 
regarded  them  more  as  a  personal  luxury.  In 
the  Orient,  however,  as  the  Bible  shows, 
challenge  by  the  glove  was  a  recognized 
institution.    Also,  in  the  sales  of  lands,  the 


The  Language  of  Gloves  19 

purchaser  was  given  a  glove  to  symbolize 
delivery  or  investiture — of  which  the  passage 
from  Ruth  which  heads  the  previous  chapter 
is,  probably,  the  most  famous  instance. 
From  the  Oriental  custom  Mediaeval  Europe 
derived  the  challenge,  so  picturesquely  em- 
ployed in  history  and  in  literature.  A 
certain  charter  of  the  thirteenth  century 
also  names  a  case  of  re-investiture,  or  resti- 
tution of  property,  symbolically  expressed 
by  the  person  restoring  the  lands  casting  his 
glove  upon  the  ground. 

If  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  were  some- 
what literal  and  coldly  materialistic  in  their 
attitude  toward  gloves,  it  remained  for 
mediaeval  Europe  to  raise  them  to  a  cult.  In 
the  Middle  Ages  men  had  a  passion  for 
glorifying  the  common  utensils  of  life. 
(Whether  it  was  the  clergy  or  royalty  which 
first  seized  upon  gloves  to  exalt  them  into  the 
realm  of  the  mysterious,  causing  them  to  be 
scarcelv  less  revered  than  the  king's  or  the 
bishop's  own  person,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
say.  But,  as  the  gloves  bestowed  upon  the 
kings  of  olden  France  at  their  coronations 
were  blessed  and  presented  by  the  arch- 
bishop of  the  realm — who,  in  this  act,  was 
simply  following  the  ancient  Eastern  practice 
of  performing  investiture — it  would  appear 
that  gloves  were  granted  by  the  Church  to 
the  thrones;  and  that  thus  the  monarch 
received  this  sign  of  his  sovereignty  as  the 
gracious  gift  of  the  Spiritual  Power,  which 
enjoyed  precedence  in  honoring  the  glove. 
\  Certainly  gloves  were  a  mark  of  religious 
dignity  at  an  extremely  early  period,  and 
played  a  distinctive  part  in  the  rites  and 


20  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

services  of  the  ancient  Church.  Officiating 
priests  invariably  consecrated  the  Holy 
Sacrament  with  gloves  on  their  hands. 
This  custom  still  obtains  in  the  Church  of 
England.  Moreover,  the  laity  always  drew 
off  their  gloves  within  the  sacred  portals, 
where  it  was  sacrilege  to  cover  worldly  hands 
even  as  the  Fathers  covered  theirs. 

To  teach  truth  by  sight  was  one  of  the 
great  endeavors  of  the  mediaeval  Church.  We 
should  not  forget  that  the  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple in  those  days  were  untaught  and  child- 
like in  their  mental  processes.  The  clergy 
were  profound  scholars,  but  they  understood 
how  to  appeal  to  the  minds  of  their  com- 
municants; they  knew  that  their  imagina- 
tions should  be  impressed,  that  sacred 
imagery  should  be  indelibly  stamped  upon 
the  sensitive-plate  of  the  soul.  Not  lip- 
parables  only,  but  allegories  for  the  eye — 
visible  svmbols — conveyed  sacred  meanings 
where  words  could  not.  Thus  art  became 
the  handmaiden  of  religion,  and  familiar 
objects  were  invested  with  hidden  sig- 
nificance. In  this  catalogue  gloves  were  by 
no  means  forgotten. 

Bruno,  Bishop  of  Segni,  tells  us  that  the 
gloves  of  the  clergy  were  originally  made  of 
linen  to  denote  that  the  hands  they  covered 
were  chaste,  pure,  without  blame.  In  1287, 
Durandus,  Bishop  of  Mende,  went  to  great 
pains  to  prove  that  the  sacred  chirothecac — 
for  the  old  Latin  name  had  been  kept — 
were  white.  He  says:  "It  was  specified 
that  by  these  gloves  the  hands  would  be 
preserved  chaste,  clean  during  work,  and 
free  from   every   stain.-'     The   gloves  which 


The  Language  of  Gloves  21 

encased  the  hands  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII.,  at 
the  time  of  his  burial,  were  of  white  silk, 
beautifully  worked  with  the  needle,  and 
ornamented  with  a  rich  border,  studded  with 
pearls. 

Considerably  later — exactly  when  is  not 
known — ecclesiastical  gloves  ceased  to  be 
invariably  white,  but  changed  their  hue,  like 
the  other  vestments,  according  to  the  cur- 
rent church  seasons.  Then  the  gloves  of  the 
church  beanie  glorious  indeed  in  color, 
texture  and  design!  St.  Charles  Borromeo 
prescribes  that  "they  shall  be  woven  through- 
out, and  adorned  with  a  golden  circle  on 
the  outside." 

The  most  famous  gloves  of  this  type 
which  have  been  preserved — though  the 
circle  is  of  red  silk,  not  of  gold — are  those 
of  William  of  Wykeham,  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester, treasured  to  this  day  at  Oxford. 
These  gloves  are  at  least  five  hundred  and 
thirty  years  old.  William  of  Wykeham  was 
the  founder  of  Xew  College,  Oxford,  in  1370, 
and  the  gloves  were  probably  worn  by  him 
at  the  opening  religious  ceremonial,  April  14, 
1386.  It  is  extremely  likely  that  they  were 
made  especially  for  that  great  occasion.  They 
are  still  in  a  wonderful  state  of  preservation, 
and  some  idea  of  their  magnificance  may  be 
had  even  from  their  present  appearance. 
They  are  made  of  crimson  purl  knitted  silk, 
embroidered  on  the  back  and  cuffs  with 
gold,  now  faded  and  tarnished.  The  octag- 
onal designs  around  the  cuffs  are  separated 
by  squares  of  emerald  green  silk;  the  cuffs 
are  lined  with  crimson  silk;  and  a  double 
band  of  gold  adorns  each  finger  and  thumb. 


22  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

The  circles  are  on  the  back  of  the  hand,  and 
with  their  sixteen  flame-pointed  arms,  worked 
in  gold,  surround  the  sacred  monogram. 

In  inventories  of  church  furniture  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  gloves,  elaborately  decorated, 
frequently  appear.  These  usually  were 
encrusted  with  precious  jewels  and  were 
so  valuable  that  they  were  left  as  legacies. 
A  pair  of  gloves  was  among  the  bequests  of 
Bishop  Kiculfus  who  died  in  915  a.d.  Even 
Thomas  a  Becket — though  it  is  reported  that 
he  never  bathed — was  buried  in  immaculate 
gloves.  And  we  have  proof  that  old  mother 
Becket  had  to  be  handled  with  gloves,  for  at 
her  baptism,  pictured  in  an  ancient  illumina- 
tion, the  officiating  bishop  is  represented  in 
long,  white  chirothecae  reaching  clear  above 
his  venerable  elbows. 

Gloves  in  the  Church  symbolized  purity 
of  heart  and  deed/  In  an  olden  missal, 
ascribed  to  the  seventh  century,  the  officiating 
bishop,  just  before  offering  mass,  draws  on 
his  snowy  linen  gloves  with  this  prayer:  "O 
Creator  of  all  creatures,  grant  me,  un- 
worthiest  of  Thy  servants,  to  put  on  the 
clothing  of  justice  and  joy,  that  I  may  be 
found  with  pure  hands  in  Thy  sight." 

The  royal  glove,  with  which  the  king 
received  his  authority  from  earliest  times, 
was  usually  purple^  ornamented  with  pearls 
and  precious  stones.  Such  "were  anciently 
deemed  ensigns  of  imperial  dignity,"  as 
Pachymenera  records.  Previous  to  the  French 
Kevolution,  at  the  crowning  of  the  Kings  of 
France,  it  was  customary  for  the  archbishop 
to  bless  a  pair  of  gloves  and  present  them  to 
the  sovereign  as  an  emblem  of  secure  posses- 


The  Language  of  Gloves  23 

sion.  In  the  English  coronation  ceremonies 
the  glove  plays  a  double  role.  His  Majesty 
being  seated  in  Westminster  Hall,  the  cham- 
pion enters,  caparisoned  as  an  ancient  knight, 
and  the  herald-at-arms  proclaims  the  chal- 
lenge. The  champion  then  throAVS  down  his 
gauntlet  which,  after  it  has  lain  a  short  time, 
is  taken  up  by  the  herald  and  returned  to 
him.  The  herald  make  a  proclamation  of 
some  length,  and  the  gauntlet  is  again  thrown 
down  by  the  champion  of  the  realm.  His 
Majesty  next  drinks  to  the  champion's  health 
and  presents  him  with  the  cup.  The  cham- 
pion then  takes  up  his  gauntlet  and  retires. 
At  the  installation  in  the  Abbey,  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk  presents  the  king  with  a  right- 
hand  glove  of  elaborate  and  beautiful  design, 
and  the  monarch,  putting  it  on,  receives  from 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  the  sceptre 
with  the  dove. 

That  gloves  were  actually  synonymous  with 
kingly  power  is  shown  by  an  instance  which 
occurred  in  the  year  1294,  when  the  Earl  of 
Flanders  by  the  delivery  of  a  glove  into  the 
hands  of  Philip  the  Fair,  "granted  him  pos- 
session of  the  good  towne  of  Flanders."  The 
wealth  of  sentiment  they  enshrined  is  further 
manifested  by  the  act  of  a  woman  of  royal 
blood.  After  the  coronation  of  Louis  XIII., 
we  are  told,  Mary  de  Medicis,  his  mother, 
"had  the  piety  to  desire  the  king's  shirt  and 
gloves,  in  order  to  preserve  them  carefully  in 
her  cabinet." 

One  of  the  most  dramatic  episodes  of  its 
kind — when  a  glove  under  romantic  cir- 
cumstances was  taken  as  the  very  embodi- 
ment of  royal  authority— is  related  in  some 


24  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

papers  of  D'Israeli.  Young  Conraddin,  the 
last  of  the  Hohenstaufer  male  line,  having 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  Mainfroy,  who  had 
usurped  the  crown  in  1282,  was  brought  up 
for  execution.  On  the  scaffold  the  young 
prince  raised  his  voice  in  lamentation  and 
declared  his  right  to  the  succession.  In  proof 
of  this  he  cast  his  glove  among  the  assembled 
crowd,  beseeching  that  it  might  be  carried  to 
his  kinsmen  who  would  avenge  his  death.  It 
was  taken  up  by  a  knight  and  brought  to 
Peter,  King  of  Aragon,  who,  in  virtue  of  the 
same  glove,  was  afterwards  crowned  at 
Palermo. 

The  kings  of  France  on  the  point  of  death 
religiously  gave  their  gloves  to  their  sons  as 
a  token  that  they  were  to  be  invested  with 
the  kingdom.  That  such  should  have  been 
almost  their  last  thought  and  act  shows  how 
real  to  them  Avas  the  power  symbolically 
invested  in  the  glove. 

Gloves,  royalty,  feudalism — these  three 
are  inseparable  in  history.  The  granting  of 
lands  by  the  king  was  the  root  of  the  feudal 
system,  in  which  modern  society  had  its  rise, 
and  the  lein  of  the  monarch  over  all  lands 
was  the  first  doctrine  of  Divine  Eight.  Thus, 
the  glove,  by  which  tenure  was  given,  became 
also  the  pledge  of  the  service  by  virtue  of 
which  tenure  was  held;  and  on  the  hand  of 
him  who  could  both  bestow  the  one  and  de- 
mand the  other,  it  was  indeed  a  symbol  of 
supreme  authority.  In  the  attire  of  Eng- 
lish monarchs,  gloves  were  especially  con- 
spicuous under  the  Norman  and  the  Plantag- 
enet  dynasties  when  the  feudal  system  was 
yet   young.     One   would   infer   that   as   the 


The  Language  of  Gloves  25 

emblematical  embodiment  of*  the  new  order, 
kings  found  them  indispensable  to  their 
dignity. 

'"Kings  were  even  buried  with  gloves  on 
their  hands,  when  "arrayed  in  ghostly  state, 
they  were  gathered  to  their  fathers." 
Richard  I.  and  John  in  their  tombs  wear 
richly  jeweled  gloves.  It  is  said  that 
Richard's  are  the  identical  ones  bv  which  he 
was  recognized  in  Austria  on  his  return  from 
the  Crusades.  In  Canterbury  Cathedral  the 
gloves  of  Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  are  hung 
above  his  last  resting  place. 

The  Bench  inherited  gloves  direct  from 
the  Church.  On  the  judge's  hands  they 
symbolized  incorruptibility,  uprightness.  In 
England  a  maiden  assize — that  is,  a  county 
session  in  which  no  malefactor  is  put  to 
death — is  commemorated  by  a  gift  of  white 
gloves,  even  to-day.  White  gloves  here  typify 
a  clean  record,  an  absence  of  felony  in  the 
judge's  precinct.  "They  represent  the  zero  of 
crime,"  says  Beck,  "the  antithesis  of  the 
black  cap.  They  afford  a  foretaste  of  the 
millennium.  The  occasion  of  their  presenta- 
tion's held  to  reflect  credit  on  any  town  or 
neighborhood,  and  is  widely  noticed  in  the 
newspapers."  The  recorder  of  Cambridge 
was  the  happy  recipient  of  this  honor,  we  are 
told,  three  times  in  succession. 

Pardoned  outlaAvs,  restored  from  a  living 
death  to  all  the  pleasures  of  home,  the 
privileges  of  citizenship  and  the  protection 
of  their  king,  were  accustomed  to  thank  their 
judges  by  presenting  them  with  gifts  of 
gloves.  Later,  however,  this  practice  was 
abused.      The    offender    was    compelled    to 


26  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 


appear  in  person,  and  by  a  present  of 
gloves  filled  with  coins  to  implore  and  obtain 
the  judges'  favor.  Thus,  by  degrees,  the 
glove  fell  away  from  its  original  significance 
and  came  to  be  synonymous  with  the  bribe. 

Sir  Thomas  More  once  received  in  grate- 
ful appreciation  of  a  case  won  for  a  lad}^,  a 
pair  of  gloves  "lined"  with  forty  angels.  As 
was  the  custom,  this  delicate  acknowledg- 
ment was  conveyed  to  him  on  the  first  day  of 
January.  "Mistress,"  wrote  the  honorable 
judge  in  reply,  "since  it  were  against  good 
manners  to  refuse  your  New  Year's  gift,  I 
am  content  to  take  your  gloves;  but  as  for 
the  lining,  I  utterly  refuse  it." 

So,  gloves,  like  most  of  the  good  things  of 
life,  were  exalted  and  degraded  by  turns,  and 
made  to  contradict  themselves. 7  Persons  tak- 
ing legal  oath  are  required  to-day  to  do  so 
bare-handed;  and  a  Portuguese  proverb 
expressive  of  private  integrity,  is,  "He  does 
not  wear  gloves." 

Keeping  the  hands  covered  in  the  pres- 
ence of  superiors  was  one  of  the  worst  social 
breaches  one  could  commit  in  former  times. 
No  doubt,  the  practice  of  presenting  gloves 
to  visitors  by  universities  meant  that  they 
recognized  their  guests  to  be  of  such  personal 
standing  and  learning  as  to  make  them 
worthy  of  remaining  with  hands  clothed  even 
before  the  highest  collegiate  dignitaries.  In 
addition  to  symbolizing  religious,  kingly  and 
judicial  eminence,  therefore,  gloves  typified 
also  a  university  honor  and  were  the  insignia 
of  the  scholar. 

At  the  Trojan  games,  nearly  one  thousand 
years  before  the  Christian  era,  the  gauntlet 


The  Language  op  Gloves  27 

was  used  both  as  a  defensive  weapon  and  as 
a  symbol  of  defiance.  Warlike  challenge  by 
the  glove,  accordingly,  had  a  very  ancient 
origin,  and  in  the  days  of  knightly  adventure 
may  have  been  deliberately  imitated  from 
the  early  epics  by  a  more  consciously 
romantic  race  of  heroes.  Challenge  by  the 
glove  frequently  is  described  by  Sir  Walter 
Scott — who,  by  the  way,  has  more  to  say 
about  gloves  than  any  other  writer,  even 
excepting  Shakespeare — but  nowhere  more 
eloquently,  perhaps,  than  in  Ivanhoe,  when 
the    Jewish    maiden    demands    a    champion. 

"  'I  am  unskilled  to  dispute  for  my  relig- 
ion' (says  Kebecca),  'but  I  can  die  for  it,  if 
it  be  God's  will !  Let  me  pray  for  your  answer 
to  my  demand  for  a  champion.' 

"'Give  me  her  glove!'  said  Beaumanoir. 
'This  is  indeed  a  slight  and  fragile  gage  for  a 
purpose  so  deadly!  See'st  thou,  Kebecca,  as 
this  slight  glove  of  thine  is  to  one  of  our 
heavy  steel  gauntlets,  so  is  thy  cause  to  that 
of  the  Temple,  for  it  is  our  order  which  thou 
hast  defied.' " 

In  the  life  of  Sir  Bernard  Gilpin,  relative 
to  customs  of  the  Scottish-English  borders 
it  is  recorded,  that  in  the  year  1560,  the  rev- 
erend gentleman  observed  in  one  of  the 
churches  in  which  he  was  preaching,  a  glove, 
hung  high  against  the  raftered  roof.  On 
making  inquiries  he  learned  that  it  was 
placed  there  in  consequence  of  a  "deadly 
feud"  prevailing  in  the  district,  and  that  the 
owner  had  suspended  it  in  defiance,  daring 
to  mortal  combat  anvone  who  took  it  down. 

The  last  instance  of  defiance  by  the  glove 
occurred  in  1818  in  a  wager  of  battle.    The 


28  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

battle,  however,  never  came  off;  and  tlie 
instance  was  the  occasion  of  the  repeal  of  the 
law  permitting  the  ancient  trial  by  battle 
and  ordeal  which  existed  in  England  for  more 
than  eight  centuries. 

Gifts  of  gloves  at  funerals  is  a  relic  of 
ancient  times,  as  was  also  their  presentation 
at  marriage  festivals.  In  Ben  Jonson's  play, 
The  Silent  Woman,  we  learn  that  a  wedding 
without  this  token  was  suspiciously  regarded, 
and  passed  for  a  jest.   Cries  one  of  the  guests : 

"We  see  no  ensigns  of  a  wedding  here, 
No  character  of  a  bridal ! 
Where  be  our  skarves  and  gloves?" 

In  Italy  and  Spain  the  glove  was  cherished 
with  the  most  romantic  feeling  ever  accorded 
it  throughout  all  its  long  and  impressive 
history.  No  king  of  olden  days  exercised 
more  despotic  rule  over  his  feudal  depend- 
ents than  the  Spanish  and  Italian  ladies 
over  their  "cavaliers,"  to  whom  even  to  be 
allowed  to  touch  the  fair  one's  glove  was  a 
favor  which  sent  the  aspiring  lover  into 
ecstacies.  Many  a  yearning  Romeo  of  that 
chivalric  age  must  have  exclaimed : 

"Would  that  I  were  a  glove  upon  that  hand, 
That  I  might  touch  that  cheek !" 

Coquetry  by  the  glove  seems  to  have  per- 
sisted down  to  a  fairly  recent  period.  The 
Spectator  observes  that  "Ned  Courtly  pre- 
senting Flavia  with  her  glove  (which  she  had 
dropped  on  purpose),  she  received  it,  and 
took  away  his  life  with  a  courtesy."  Charles 
IV.  of  Spain  appears  to  have  been  in  Ned 
Courtly ?s    class,    for    His    Majesty    was    so 


The  Language  of  Gloves  29 

extremely  susceptible,  we  are  told,  to  any 
lady  who  wore  white  kid  gloves,  that  the  use 
of  them  at  court  was  strictly  prohibited.  A 
charming  picture  is  called  to  mind  also  by 
the  recollection  of  a  novel  bv  William  Black, 
in  which  the  guileless  heroine  all  uncon- 
sciously captivates  the  hero  the  first  time  he 
sets  eyes  on  her,  by  the  graceful,  ladylike 
manner  in  which  she  draws  on  and  fastens 
her  gloves. 

But  if  the  symbolism  of  gloves  and  their 
old,  romantic  usages  largely  have  fallen 
away,  leaving  us  an  article  of  familiar, 
practical,  everyday  concern,  the  language  of 
gloves  for  us  is  not  dead.  When  we  take 
pains  to  be  fittingly  costumed  for  an  im- 
portant occasion,  there  is  no  detail  of  our 
dress  which  we  are  more  anxious  should  be 
in  perfect  keeping,  than  our  gloves.  To  them 
still  clings  a  halo  of  sentiment,  part  and 
parcel  of  our  own  dignity.  In  view  of  their 
history  we  are  justified  in  our  feeling. 
"Gloves,"  says  Beck,  "outweigh  all  other 
articles  of  apparel  which  have  been  the  out- 
ward and  visible  signs  of  hidden  things." 


Chapter  IV. 
HOW  GLOVES  CAME  TO  GBENOBLE 


"A  French  town  ...  in  which  the  product  of  successive 
ages,  not  without  lively  touches  of  the  present,  are  blended 
together  harmoniously,  with  a  beauty  specific — a  beauty  cis- 
alpine and  northern — and  of  which  Turner  has  found  the  ideal 
in  certain  of  his  studies  of  the  rivers  of  France,  a  perfectly 
happy  conjunction  of  river  and  town  being  of  the  essence  of 
its  physiognomy." — Deny  U  Auxerrois:  Walter  Pater. 


MANY  centuries  ago,  certain  chieftains 
of  the  Allobroges  were  inspired  to 
plant  their  little  village  of  Cularo  at  the 
supremely  strategic  point  of  all  southern 
Gaul.  They  built  it  a  trifle  to  the  East  of  the 
meeting  place  of  two  rivers,  the  Isere  and 
the  torrent  of  the  Drac;  north  of  them 
stretched  the  high,  unbroken  wall  of  the 
lower  Alps.  And  there  in  the  sheltered  valley 
they  lived  and  were  protected  against  incur- 
sions of  other  more  warlike  tribes — until  the 
great  conqueror  of  the  world  poured  its 
invincible  legions  over  the  mountain  bar- 
riers, and  Borne  seized  the  little  Allobrogian 
defence  town  to  be  a  colonial  outpost  of  con- 
siderable military  importance.  On  the  site 
of  Cularo  sprang  up  the  strongly  fortified 
Gratianopolis,  thus  called  in  honor  of  the 
Emperor  Gratian  who  reinforced  the  walls 
besrin  bv  Diocletian  and  Maximian.  Later, 
with  the  decline  of  the  Roman  poAver  and  the 
development  of  the  Frankish  nation,  the 
Latin  name  was  abbreviated  to  Grenoble — 
by  which  the  modern  city  is  known  to-day  as 
the  chef-lieu  of  the  department  of  the  Isere 
in  France. 


How  Gloves  Came  to  Grenoble       31 

The  town,  from  its  birth  to  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  was  familiarly  stvled  "la 
ville  du  pont"  the  city  of  the  bridge.  For 
more  than  a  thousand  vears  it  commanded 
the  only  point  where  it  was  possible  to  cross 
the  river  Isere.  It  was  also  designated  "the 
old  Roman  route  town,"  for  it  lay  on  the 
natural  highroad  which  linked  Italy  on  the 
north  with  the  country  of  France,  the  valley 
of  the  Po  with  that  of  the  Rhone.  The  quaint, 
turret ed  bridge  which  spanned  the  river  in 
mediaeval  days  provided  passage  to  the  Alps 
from  French  soil,  and  was  the  gateway  to 
France  for  strangers  approaching  over  the 
mountains.  While  its  strategic  position  in 
time  of  war  must  be  apparent,  the  site  of  the 
city  was  no  less  vital  to  trade  and  to  later 
industrial  development.  As  early  as  1615 
Grenoble  was  known,  far  and  wide,  as  "the 
city  of  glovers." 

The  earliest  records  of  the  consuls  of 
Grenoble,  which  have  been  preserved  almost 
intact  since  1244,  tell  us  only  of  "drapers, 
tailors,  apothecaries  and  shoeing-smiths"  in 
the  city;  and  in  1489  they  mention  in  addi- 
tion sailors,  pastry  cooks,  carpenters,  bar- 
bers— but  not  glovers.  Only  the  weavers, 
tanners  and  curriers  of  wool  and  hemp 
presage  the  industrial  future.  There  seems 
to  be  some  question  of  a  lone  glover  in  1328 
who  gave  his  services  to  the  dauphin.  But 
probably  this  workman  made  numerous 
things  for  his  fellow-citizens,  gloves  included, 
and  at  the  same  time  was  a  dealer  in  furs  and 
perfumes.  In  the  statutes  of  the  glovers  of 
Paris,  dating  from  1190,  they  are  styled  "mar- 
chands-maitres-gantiers-parfumeurs"  master- 


32  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

merchants-of-gloves-and-perfunies,  and  are 
accorded  the  exclusive  right  to  prepare  and 
sell  these  luxuries.  Furs  were  usually  added 
to  their  stock  in  trade.  But  the  solitary 
glove-maker  of  1328  was  in  no  sense  a  pioneer 
of  the  glove  guild  in  Grenoble,  else  had  he 
apprenticed  to  himself  other  workmen,  and 
the  town  been  filled  with  glovers  fully  a 
hundred  years  earlier  than  it  was. 

The  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century 
was  a  period  of  war  and  domestic  upheaval 
for  Grenoble,  during  which  the  city  govern- 
ment Avas  tossed  back  and  forth  among 
predatory  barons  until,  in  1590,  Lesdiguieres, 
"the  King  of  the  Mountains,"  took  the  town 
by  seige  in  the  name  of  Henry  IV.  Under 
Lesdiguieres'  remarkably  public-spirited  gov- 
ernorship, peace  returned,  commerce  was 
resumed,  and  natural  resources,  scarcely 
recognized  before,  were  drawn  upon  for 
the  development  of  new  crafts,  whose  prod- 
ucts, now  for  the  first  time,  were  to  be 
exported  to  all  parts  of  France  and  even 
into  other  countries.  Among  these  new 
crafts  glove-making  instantly  sprang  into 
prominence. 

For  the  raw  materials  were  everywhere 
at  hand.  On  the  slopes  of  the  mountains, 
enclosing  like  the  tiers  of  a  vast  amphitheatre 
the  city  seemingly  chosen  by  Nature  to 
become  the  mis-en-scene  of  the  glove  drama, 
millions  of  wild  goats  fed.  Already  the 
tanners  and  tawers  had  tested  the  admirable 
quality  of  their  skins,  and  those  of  the 
females  in  particular  were  found  to  be  of 
the  fine,  soft  variety,  peculiarly  free  from 
flaws,  so  admirably  adapted  to  the  making 


How  Gloves  Came  to  Grenoble       33 

of  gloves.  For  the  process  of  tawing  the 
skins,  moreover,  the  waters  of  the  Isere, 
because  of  their  singular  purity,  were  incom- 
parable. And  in  the  city  itself — its  popula- 
tion now  greatly  increased  by  prosperity  and 
peace — lived  scores  of  skilled  artisans  and 
their  sons,  well  fitted  for  the  careful  cutting 
and  shaping  of  gloves;  while  the  wonien, 
equipped  Avith  three-cornered  needles,  quickly 
became   adepts   in   sewing   gloves   by   hand. 

Other  occupations,  which  now  received 
special  impetus  in  mediaeval  Grenoble,  were 
the  weaving  of  hemp  textiles — for  hemp  was 
the  most  prolific  crop  of  the  alluvial  river 
valleys — paper-making,  and  the  manufacture 
of  playing-cards ;  about  1630,  the  fruit  of  the 
vineyards  on  the  mountain  slopes,  was  turned 
into  wine  for  exportation,  and  beautiful  pot- 
tery and  tiles  Avere  made  of  the  rich  clay  de- 
posits of  the  Drac.  But  of  all  these  crafts, 
the  one  taking  first  rank  from  the  very  start, 
and  the  one  which  quickly  identified  itself  Avith 
the  toAAm,  Avas  gloves.  In  the  municipal  acts, 
glovers  often  appear  after  1606.  In  1619 
Claude  Honore,  a  master  glover,  was  elected 
consul.  And  in  1664  a  certain  skilled  work- 
man, Jean  Charpel,  an  artist  in  his  line,  pro- 
claims himself  glover  to  the  king. 

"One  sees  the  glovers,"  observes  a  noted 
traveller  of  those  times,  "filling  all  the  streets 
after  1610,  and  especially  the  rues  Saint- 
Laurent,  Perriere,  Tres-Cloitre,  and  the 
suburb,  together  Avith  the  curriers,  tanners 
and  taAvers,  and  the  combers  of  hemp." 

Although  most  historians  date  the  close 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  beginnings  of 
modern  Europe  from  the  era  of  the  Prot- 


34  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

estant  Reformation,  spanning  the  period  from 
1517  to  about  1560,  Grenoble  remained  for  a 
hundred   years   longer   a   mediaeval    city   in 
every  sense  of  the  word.    France  continued 
a  Catholic  country,  and  Grenoble,  sequestered 
in    a    southern    province,    scarcely    felt    the 
disquieting    breath    of    the    great    religious 
revolution  which  was  sweeping  mid-Europe. 
Its  ideas  and  its  civilization  changed  little, 
even  while  fresh  consciousness  of  its  natural 
powers    and    material    resources    was    im- 
pregnating  the   city   with   neAV   industries. 
The    spirit    of    craftsmanship — that    joyous 
love  of  perfection,  not  only  in  the  fine  but 
also  in  the  useful  arts,  which  characterized 
the  Renaissance — was  still  the  ruling  temper 
of  its  citizens;  and  the  guild  of  glovers,  the 
most   numerous    and   influential   of    all   the 
artisans,   particularly  personified  this   civic 
character.    If  we  would  gain  some  notion  of 
the  part  glove-making  actually  played  in  the 
lives  of  these  people,  and  the  status  of  the 
glove-craft  as  it  first  appeared  in  mediaeval 
Europe,  we  have  only  to  journey  in  imagina- 
tion to  Grenoble  in  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  on  the  occasion  of  the  great 
annual  festival  of  the  glovers. 

It  is  a  clear,  tranquil  morning  in  the  latter 
part  of  July,  1650,  and  the  sun,  scarcely  an 
hour's  march  above  the  mountains,  is  flooding 
with  almost  tropic  brilliancy  the  matchless 
paradise  of  the  Dauphine.  In  its  confluence 
of  rivers  and  fair  valleys,  the  ancient  capital 
city,  Grenoble,  shines  in  the  midst  of  the 
green  plain  of  Gresivaudan.  Impossible  to 
describe  the  ever-changing  charm  of  the 
horizons !— as,  from  the  city  itself,  the  eye 


How  Gloves  Came  to  Grenoble       35 

sweeps  eastward,  northward,  westward,  over 
range  upon  range  of  snow-crowned  moun- 
tains, under  a  sky  so  pure,  so  glowing,  that 
distant  peaks  apparently  loom  near,  and  the 
cool  breath  of  Alpine  heights  gently  smites 
the  cheek. 

Eastward,  the  prongs,  the  pinnacles,  the 
clear-cut  outlines  of  a  sierra;  it  is  the  chain 
of  Belledonne.  From  the  devastation  of  its 
summits  and  terraced  slopes,  one  divines 
beneath  its  summer  cloak  of  verdure  con- 
cealing only  its  lower  descent,  the  adamantine 
rock  moulded  for  all  time  by  the  glaciers  of 
the  ice  age.  It  is  indeed  the  advance  guard 
of  those  massive  crystal  formations,  the 
veritable  backbone  of  the  Alps,  which  pene- 
trate into  France  from  Mont  Blanc.  On  a 
morning  like  this,  the  Swiss  peak  itself  can 
be  seen,  cleaving  the  far-away  heavens  which 
overhang  Savoy. 

In  the  west  the  spectacle  changes.  Beyond 
the  vast  plain  of  the  Drac  appears  a  long, 
white  cliff,  little  carved  out — a  rigid  line  of 
limestone  falling  sheer  to  the  valley  where 
lies  Grenoble.  This  is  the  compact  mass  of 
Vercors,  almost  impassable.  Yet,  suddenly, 
the  cliff  makes  way;  the  vale  of  Furon  leaps 
through  the  chasm  in  the  mountain  wall.  An 
ancient  road,  winding  ribbonwise  to  west- 
ward, puts  into  communication  the  valley 
of  the  Isere  with  the  wooded  brows,  the  vast 
grassy  holloAvs,  of  the  Vercors  countryside. 

Northward,  the  limestone  reappears  in  the 
Chartreuse.  But  these  mountains,  unlike 
Vercors,  are  twisted  and  broken,  resembling 
a  half  demolished  castle  with  great  apertures 
and    rents    in    its    once    impregnable    sides. 


36  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

Their  countless  little  vales  and  fertile  levels 
glow  with  stream-fed  pasturage  and  with 
billoAvy  forests.  And  everywhere,  among  the 
foothills  of  the  encircling  ranges,  roam  herds 
of  goats  and  cattle,  without  suspicion  of  the 
fate  which  awaits  them  with  the  coming  of 
the  great  Fair  of  the  autumn  at  Grenoble. 

On  this  July  morning  the  old  town  gleams 
like  a  strange  jewel,  set  in  the  spacious,  lush 
meadow  lands,  stretching  league  on  league, 
to  the  mountains.  Vast  gardens  of  hemp 
wave  to  its  very  walls.  Vineyards  veil  the 
nearer  hills,  and  the  mulberry  dots  the 
plains  of  the  southeast.  The  Isere,  restless, 
ever  seeking  new  outlet,  interlaces  with  a 
network  of  sparkling  tributaries  the  great 
expanse  of  Gresivaudan.  All  the  richness  of 
the  region,  all  the  amazing  variety  and 
beauty  with  which  nature  has  surrounded 
this  ancient  city,  seems  concentrated,  in  the 
early  hush  and  radiance,  in  an  act  of  worship. 

Now  the  sun  has  penetrated  the  shadows 
below  the  city  walls,  and  is  stealing  through 
the  sinuous,  crowded  streets,  peculiar  to 
towns  which  long  have  been  cramped  within 
the  precincts  of  strong  fortifications.  The 
tiled  eaves  lean  so  close  one  upon  another,  as 
in  some  places  actually  to  shut  out  the  sky. 
If  we  might  fly  up  like  a  bird  and  look  down 
over  the  Grenoble  of  1650,  we  would  be  gaz- 
ing upon  a  confusion  of  multi-colored  roofs, 
set  at  every  conceivable  angle  of  picturesque- 
ness,  and  upon  a  bewildering  congregation  of 
chimneys  and  chimney-pots.  Also,  we  would 
note  that  the  town  lay  on  both  banks  of  the 
Isere,  connected  by  a  tower  bridge,  and  pro- 


How  Gloves  Came  to  Grenoble       37 

tected  on  the  north  by  the  fortress  of  the 
Bastille. 

Down  in  the  roughly  paved  rue  Saint- 
Laurent  the  clatter  of  sabots  on  the  stones 
announces  that  the  townspeople  are  astir. 
Shutters  are  thrown  open.  Bursts  of  song 
herald  the  holiday.  Crowds  of  goats,  driven 
through  the  streets,  are  being  milked  at  the 
house  doors.  Then,  from  the  Cathedral  of 
Notre  Dame — whose  foundations,  it  is  said, 
were  laid  by  Charlemagne — the  bells  pro- 
claim with  sweet  solemnity  the  call  to  early 
mass.  Out  of  the  houses  pour  the  people  in 
gaily  embroidered  holiday  dress,  group  join- 
ing group  with  merry  exchange  of  saluta- 
tions, until,  trooping  through  the  narrow 
streets,  the  colorful  procession  appears  like  a 
wandering  rainbow  threading  the  grey  mazes 
of  the  old  town. 

House  after  house  they  pass  and  shop  after 
shop,  each  bearing  above  the  portal  a  shield 
emblazened  with  the  selfsame  coat-of-arms — 
the  heraldic  device  of  the  guild  of  the  glovers. 
Their  occupants,  gayest  of  the  gay,  fast  swell 
the  throng,  with  masters  and  their  families 
and  apprentices — the  young  boys  in  the 
retinues  stealing  shy  glances  at  the  pretty 
daughters  of  their  masters,  the  maidens 
covertly  returning  their  admirers'  bash- 
ful looks. 

And  now  the  multitude  melts  into  the 
tender  gloom  of  the  ancient  cathedral;  their 
voices  are  hushed  in  the  sweet  fluting  of  the 
choir.  Above  the  heads  of  the  kneeling 
populace  glows  the  shrine  of  Saint  Anne, 
lit  with  innumerable  candles  and  smothered 
in  exotic,  summer  flowers.     For  this  is  the 


IftfkT 


38  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

annual  fete-day_of  the  mother  of  the  Virgin, 
the  patron  saint  of  les  gantiers,  revered  by 
all  good  glovers  throughout  France.  At 
Grenoble,  however,  the  feast  is  observed 
with  greater  magnificence  than  anywhere 
else,  for  the  glovers  constitute  by  far  the 
most  numerous  body,  and  the  most  pros- 
perous, of  its  citizens,  and  theirs  is  the  crown- 
ing festivitv  of  the  whole  year. 

According  to  monkish  legend,  the  good 
Saint  Anne  made  a  livelihood  while  on  earth 
by  knitting  gloves.  "The  knitting  saint,''  in 
homely  terms  of  affection  the  people  liked 
to  call  her.  They  were  wont  to  regard  her 
as  one  like  themselves — only  holier  far,  for 
the  great  honor  God  saw  fit  to  confer  upon 
her — fulfilling  her  simple  task  from  day  to 
day,  the  needles  always  busy  in  her  fingers. 
Their  love  for  her  was  so  strong,  indeed,  and 
so  enduring,  that  early  in  the  nineteenth 
century  the  glovers  ordered  a  statue  of 
their  saint  set  up  in  a  public  square  of 
Grenoble,  where  it  mav  be  seen  to-day.  It 
represents  the  mother  of  Mary,  knitting, 
with  a  half-finished  glove  in  her  hand  and  a 
basket  of  gloves  at  her  feet. 

Mass  celebrated,  the  long  summer  day  is 
given  over  to  street  festivities,  to  feasting, 
dancing  and  pageantry.  The  doors  of  the 
glovers'  guild-hall,  converted  into  a  flower- 
adorned  banqueting  room,  stand  wide  open. 
The  glovers'  shops  and  houses  overflow  with 
hospitality.  As  at  a  great  fair,  popular 
arts  and  pastimes  occupy  the  squares  and 
spaces  before  the  public  buildings;  several 
such  distractions  begin  at  once  and  continue 
simultaneouslv.      Mountebanks     and    niusi- 


How  Gloves  Came  to  Grenoble        :5!> 

cians,  folk  dances,  Columbines  and  Pierrots, 
flower-girls,  venders  of  bon-bons  and  pet  its 
joujoux  of  every  description,  all  commingle 
in  a  laughing,  jabbering,  singing,  whirl- 
ing, shimmering,  merry-making  throng.  A 
wheeled  street-stage,  drawn  by  donkeys,  with 
bells  jingling  about  their  necks  and  on  their 
trappings,  makes  the  rounds  of  the  town. 
Wherever  it  stops,  the  gay  curtains  of  the 
miniature  theatre  are  parted  to  disclose  the 
play-actors  who  give  a  mediaeval  burlesque 
of  Don  Juan,  amid  the  noisy  applause  and 
high-pitched  laughter  of  the  onlookers. 

But  the  great  feature  of  the  day  is  the 
pageant  of  the  glovers,  in  which  each  master, 
with  his  apprentices  and  family,  has  his 
special  part.  This  takes  the  form  of  a  pro- 
cession of  carnival  vans,  or  floats,  drawn  by 
gorgeously  caparisoned  horses,  and  followed 
by  crowds  of  young  apprentices  and  work- 
men and  workmaidens  on  foot,  who  enact  in 
pantomime  the  various  processes  of  glove- 
making  as  it  was  practiced  in  mediaeval  days. 
Beautiful  kids  and  chamois  from  the  moun- 
tains, wreathed  with  blossoms  as  though  for 
sacrifice,  are  led  by  troops  of  peasant  gar  cons 
in  blue  smocks.  The  cutters  advance,  rhyth- 
mically jingling  their  shears ;  and  the  needle- 
women move  by  more  slowly,  drawing  their 
shining  implements  in  perfect  unison  through 
the  unfinished  gloves  they  carry  in  their 
hands.  A  spice  of  rivalry  enlivens  the  exhibi- 
tion, for  every  master-glover  has  taken  pains 
that  his  own  personal  retinue  shall  be  as 
large  and  as  brilliant  as  possible.  Every 
apprentice  is  fired  with  the  desire  to  so  com- 
port himself  as  to  be  an  honor  to  his  master 


40  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

—and,  incidentally,  to  attract  the  admira- 
tion of  the  maiden  of  the  house  he  hopes 
to  win. 

Angelus  finds  the  merry-makers  still 
romping,  singing,  dancing;  a  little  wearily 
the  couples  break  apart,  and  the  townsfolk 
once  more  flock  through  the  streets,  trans- 
formed in  the  afterglow  to  running  rivers 
of  gold,  and  are  lost  in  the  stilly  dusk  of  the 
cathedral.  And  now  the  tapers  gleam  like 
stars  upon  the  altar  of  Saint  Anne,  and  the 
fading  flowers  send  forth  a  sweet,  benumbing 
perfume,  as  heads  are  bowed  to  receive  the 
evening  benediction.  On  the  rough,  uneven 
stones  of  the  floor  they  kneel,  imploring  in 
their  hearts  the  good  saint  who  protects  and 
prospers  all  devout  glovers,  that  the  craft 
may  wax  stronger  with  every  year  in  the 
city  of  Grenoble. 

So  we  see  an  entire  community  uniting  in 
a  great  religious,  civic,  industrial  and  social 
festival  to  celebrate  and  re-consecrate  the 
craft  of  glove-making.  The  place  of  honor 
this  calling  held  in  former  times  is  unique  and 
striking.  In  the  chapters  which  follow  we 
shall  observe  how  gloves — and  especially  the 
gloves  of  Grenoble — have  sustained  their  early 
tradition  through  three  hundred  years  of 
political  vicissitude  and  commercial  struggle. 


Chapter  V. 

THE  GLOVERS  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURY 

"Lo,  the  old  order  changeth!" 

TLJOW  the  glove  craft  of  Grenoble  spon- 
A A  taneously  sprang  up,  took  firm  root  and 
grew  until  it  controlled,  to  a  great  degree, 
the  fortunes  of  that  city,  has  been  shown  in 
the  foregoing  brief  summary  of  events.  The 
many  phases  of  life  with  which  glove-making 
was  bound  up  in  mediaeval,  days,  its  social 
and  economic  importance  to  the  community 
and  its  pre-eminence  among  the  early  indus- 
tries, cannot  have  failed  to  be  apparent. 
From  about  1G00  the  chief  city  of  the 
Dauphine  underwent  an  astonishingly  rapid 
development. 

But,  if  the  seventeenth  century  was  little 
short  of  phenomenal  in  glove  history,  glove- 
making  in  Grenoble  was  not  fated  to  become 
one  of  the  leading  enterprises  of  the  world 
without  a  struggle.  The  hundred  years  that 
followed  were  at  once  the  most  sterile  and 
the  most  fecund  in  the  annals  of  the  trade — 
and,  for  that  matter,  the  same  is  equally 
true  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  regards  its 
bearing  upon  the  destinies  of  Europe. 
Destructive  of  immediate  results  and  of  con- 
temporary prosperity,  this  era  which  endured 
the  birth  throes  of  modern  states  and  the 
upheavals  of  the  Revolution,  was,  neverthe- 
less, big  with  prophetic  good.  And  it  is  to 
the  everlasting  honor  of  the  glovers  of 
Grenoble  that  they  bore  their  part  in  this 


42  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 


vast  social  and  political  movement,  which, 
temporarily  threatened  death  to  their  per- 
sonal interests,  with  their  eves  fixed,  not 
upon  gain,  but  upon  those  high  ideals  and 
principles  to  which  their  faith  clung,  even  in 
the  midst  of  business  paralysis  and  social 
chaos. 

While  the  flame  of  the  Revolution  did  not 
break  forth  until  nearly  the  close  of  the 
century,  the  spirit  of  modernity  and  unrest 
attacked  the  French  people  fully  a  hundred 
years  before  the  fall  of  the  Bastille.  In 
Grenoble  the  transition  from  the  old  order 
to  the  new  was  anticipated  as  early  as  1691, 
in  response  to  a  proclamation  of  the  king 
that  the  business  of  the  country  be  taxed  to 
refill  the  roval  treasurv. 

After  the  brilliant  victories  of  his  earlv 
reign,  Louis  XIY.  had  suffered  severe  re- 
verses. He  was  gravely  in  need  of  money  to 
repair  the  military  organization.  New 
resources  must  somehow  be  found,  and  that 
immediately.  The  only  adequate  answer 
which  presented  itself  took  the  form  of  taxa- 
tion imposed  upon  the  business  interests  of 
the  realm.  The  glovers  of  Grenoble,  accord- 
ingly, in  1691,  organized  themselves  into  the 
Corporation  des  Gantiers,  or  Corporation 
of  Glovers,  to  determine  how  heavily  their 
industry  should  be  taxed  in  support  of  the 
regime.  While  they  felt  loyally  obliged  to 
contribute  all  they  were  able  to  the  king's 
cause,  by  the  very  act  of  their  organizing  and 
by  virtue  of  the  funds  they  furnished,  they 
became  masters  at  home,  respected  by  the 
monarch,  independent  and  self-governing. 
Their  sacrifice  of  money  to  the  government 


The  Glovers  in  The  Eighteenth  Century  43 

had,  in  the  same  hour,  bought  them  their 
freedom  in  all  that  pertained  to  their  local 
affairs. 

The  importance  of  this  initial  association 
for  an  economic  purpose  scarcely  can  be 
overestimated.  The  Corporation  later  proved 
the  unit  of  strength  which  was  to  render  the 
glovers,  as  a  body,  invincible  through  the 
endless  chain  of  vicissitudes,  political,  moral 
and  industrial,  which  all  but  swept  away, 
in  the  next  hundred  years,  the  totality  of 
progress  gained  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
In  1590  Grenoble  had  not  10,000  inhabitants. 
In  1692  Vauban  values  the  population  at 
33,000.  During  the  seventeenth  century,  then, 
its  numbers  had  more  than  tripled,  and  this 
must  needs  strike  one  as  the  more  remark- 
able inasmuch  as  city  life  in  that  epoch  was 
little  developed.  Such  growth,  as  we  have 
seen,  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  evolution 
of  its  industries.     In  1692,  Vauban  wrote: 

"The  city  contains  a  very  numerous  bour- 
geoisie, and  is  filled  with  a  high  quality  of 
of  artisans  which  furnish  a  great  variety  of 
products  to  the  largest  part  of  the  province. 
Its  increase  has  been  such  that  it  actually  is 
bursting  out  of  its  new  ramparts.  The  city 
has  dire  need  of  expansion;  all  ranks  of  peo- 
ple demand  it  irresistibly." 

In  1700  Vauban  submitted  a  plan  for 
enlarging  extensively  the  city  proper.  This 
was  not  to  be  realized,  however,  until  one 
hundred  and  forty  years  later.  Already  the 
tide  had  turned.  The  people  were  passing 
out  through  the  gates  of  Grenoble,  never  to 
return.  The  eighteenth  century  was  destined 
to  be  such  a  period  of  sacrifice  and  retarda- 


44  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

tion,  in  a  material  sense,  as  the  town  had 
never  known,  even  in  the  pestilence-ridden, 
war-mad  days  which  preceded  the  advent  of 
Lesdiguieres. 

The  explanation  of  the  exodus  which 
ushered  in  the  new  century  leads  us  back, 
for  a  moment,  to  certain  events  which,  until 
now,  we  have  not  had  occasion  to  mention. 
A  great  blessing  to  Grenoble  in  the  past  had 
been  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  by  which  Henry  IV., 
in  1598,  had  put  an  end  to  the  religious  wars. 
It  had  paved  the  way  for  the  uninterrupted 
peace  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  thus 
for  the  efflorescence  of  Grenoble's  crafts  and 
industries.  The  Kevocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  by  Louis  XIV.,  in  1685,  really  marks 
the  turning  point  in  that  city's  prosperity. 
The  testimony  of  contemporaries  confirms 
this  opinion,  and  the  verdict  of  those  living 
twenty  years  later  in  the  famous  glove  town, 
assigns  to  the  same  cause  the  steady  shrink- 
ing of  the  population  during  the  second 
decade  after  the  Revocation. 

The  sudden  withdrawal  of  religious  liberty 
cost  France  three  hundred  thousand  of  her 
people  who  emigrated  to  Germany,  Holland, 
and  other  Protestant  countries.  A  large 
element  in  these  emigrations  were  the  skilled 
artisans.  Grenoble  alone  was  deprived  of 
nearly  three  thousand  persons,  among  them 
the  family  of  the  Lesdiguieres,  many  others 
of  the  nobility  and  the  gentlefolk,  and  a  large 
body  of  masters  and  apprentices. 

In  1705  the  city  lost  five  hundred  indi- 
viduals of  the  religious  profession  and 
seventy-three  families  of  "gentilhomnies," 
whose  disappearance  was  no  trifling  matter, 


The  Glovers  in  The  Eighteenth  Century  45 

as  these  personages  had  been  liberal  patrons 
of  the  glovers,  and  it  was  their  wealth  which, 
in  great  part,  had  made  business  move. 
Industry  in  Grenoble,  on  every  hand,  was  in 
a  grievous  state — but  especially  glove-mak- 
ing, the  home  demand  being  suddenly 
removed,  and  foreign  trade  little  developed 
at  that  period. 

Such  was  the  deplorable  effect  of  the 
Kevocation.  The  glovers,  however,  proved 
themselves  possessed  of  almost  unbelievable 
powers  of  recuperation.  In  1729  we  find  the 
sale  of  Grenoble  gloves  spreading  rapidly  in 
Germany,  Switzerland,  Savoy  and  Piedmont. 
Foreign  trade  steadily  increased,  despite 
the  fact  that  the  population  of  Grenoble 
remained,  virtually,  at  a  standstill.  But 
trade  abroad  brought  also  foreign  competi- 
tion. While  the  Revocation  had  actually 
served  Grenoble,  indirectly,  by  causing  the 
ruin  of  her  rivals  in  France — Blois  and 
Vendome,  which  could  not  support  the  drain 
of  their  emigrations;  and  especially  Grasse, 
which  was  seriously  crippled  by  loss  of  its 
master  glovers  and  the  departure  of  most  of 
its  families  of  wealth — these  selfsame  emigra- 
tions doubtless  stimulated  the  manufacture 
of  gloves  outside  France.  Many  of  those 
who  had  served  their  apprenticeship  in 
Grenoble,  and  master  glovers  holding  the 
secrets  of  her  arts,  probably  became  rivals,  in 
other  lands,  of  the  city  they  once  had  called 
their  own. 

All  this  complicated  subject  of  commer- 
cial relations,  the  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  foreign  trade,  and  the  history 
of  the  glove  market,  will  be  treated  separately 


46  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

and  in  detail  in  the  chapter  which  follows. 
For  the  present,  let  us  keep  to  our  main  issue 
— the  vicissitudes  in  general  of  gloves  and 
glove-makers  in  the  leading  glove  city  of  the 
world  during  the  stormy  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

From  1737  to  1746  we  learn  that  the  life 
of  the  Grenoble  glovers — on  the  surface,  at 
least — was  comparatively  monotonous.  The 
manufacture  made  some  progress,  but  the 
possibilities  of  expansion  were  not  such  as 
to  stimulate  very  keenly  those  at  the  head  of 
things.  The  masters  and  the  workers  lived 
without  disagreement,  apparently;  the  time- 
honored  rules  of  the  craft  continued  to  be 
observed  on  both  sides.  In  the  Corporation 
a  public  magistrate  managed  the  affairs  of 
the  association;  the  glovers  themselves,  it 
would  seem,  being  too  indifferent  to  take  an 
active  part.  Prosperity  appears  to  have 
been  just  about  commensurate  with  the  needs 
of  the  Corporation. 

And  yet,  beneath  this  evident  torpor,  a 
vast  inquietude  was  moving,  like  an  earth- 
quake under  the  sea.  A  fermentation  of 
social  discontent — bred  by  the  philosophy  of 
the  times,  by  the  glaring  disparity  between 
the  ruling  class  and  the  working  people,  the 
latters'  distrust  of  the  morals  and  the 
assumed  authority  of  the  former,  by  the 
teachings  of  freemasonry  and  the  trades 
unions — was  slowly  gathering  momentum. 
In  working  centres — conspicuously  in  Gre- 
noble and  throughout  the  Dauphine — the 
wealthy  people  were  constantly  framing  re- 
monstrances, begging  the  Royal  Council  to 
curb  the  mutterings  of  the  proletariat. 


The  Glovers  in  The  Eighteenth  Century  47 

The  outbreak  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  in 
1756,  increased  the  industrial  depression  by 
cutting  off  a  part  of  the  foreign  demand,  par- 
ticularly for  gloves,  and  by  calling  away 
from  France  many  men  for  the  army.  In 
1759  a  heavy  tax  was  imposed  by  the  crown 
upon  skins.  This  proved  the  last  straw.  It 
meant  that  skins  for  tawing  were  hardly  to 
be  had,  and  thus  the  glovers  were  without 
materials  for  their  manufacture.  Their  irri- 
tation was  acute,  and  the  parliament  of 
Grenoble  was  obliged  to  carry  before  the 
king  the  united  protestations  of  the  Corpora- 
tion cles  Gantiers. 

This  defence  in  behalf  of  the  Grenoble 
glovers  was  at  once  an  act  of  justice  and  an 
achievement  of  admirable  foresight.  The 
parliament  did  more  than  merely  present 
the  honest  grievances  of  the  industry.  With  a 
commendable  vigor  and  pride  it  laid  before 
the  king  a  constructive  measure  which  was 
to  become  the  occasion  in  France  of  an 
economic  revolution  in  the  skin  and  glove 
trades.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  break- 
ing down  of  custom  duties  on  gloves  between 
provinces.  After  a  few  years  the  internal 
taxes  on  this  product  were  entirely  abolished. 
Thus  vanished  all  unfair  competition  at 
home,  and  neighboring  glove  cities  ceased 
to  come  under  the  title  of  "the  foreigner." 
At  the  same  time,  the  selling  of  skins  from 
province  to  province  became  free  and  general. 
Great  fairs  were  held  by  the  skin  merchants, 
the  tawers  and  tanners,  for  the  benefit  of  all 
the  surrounding  region.  Exportation  of  skins 
decreased,  while  home  manufacturers  rejoiced 
in  the  abundance  of  excellent  materials. 


48  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

The  Corporation  of  Glovers,  however,  suf- 
fered meanwhile  from  the  growing  restlessness 
and  vague  ambitions  of  its  workers.  The  old 
regulations  were  gradually  and  inevitably 
giving  wa}^  before  the  awakening  conscious- 
ness of  a  new  race  of  wage-earners,  grown 
almost  morbidly  distrustful  of  vested  au- 
thority. The  Dauphine  was  afflicted  with  the 
bad  example  of  many  of  its  aristocrats.  The 
nobilitv  was  indeed  unworthv  of  its  rank. 
The  pervading  restiveness  and  insubordina- 
tion of  the  working  class  sprang  out  of  a 
deep,  instinctive  resentment  against  the  pre- 
vailing order.  Of  course,  the  first  point  of 
friction  lay  between  the  apprentices  and  the 
masters. 

Though  the  severities  of  apprenticeship 
were  modified,  the  former  good  faith  between 
these  two  was  irretrievably  lost.  Fear  of 
foreign  competition  faded  into  insignificance 
before  this  intimate  situation — the  suspicious 
attitude  toward  one  another  of  masters  and 
workmen.  Such  was  bound  to  be  the  price  of 
a  last,  furious  assault  upon  the  mouldering 
ramparts  of  long-decayed  feudalism. 

The  master  glovers,  on  their  side,  shared 
in  the  social  discontent,  and  participated  in 
the  long  drawn-out  struggle  between  the 
aristocracy  and  the  bourgeoisie  to  determine 
which  of  these  should  predominate  in  the 
local  tribunals.  The  glovers  of  Grenoble  con- 
tended that  thev,  as  an  organized  bodv  of 

•      /  o  ft. 

people,  no  longer  merely  having  a  trade,  but 
enjoying  also  a  social  position  encroaching 
on  the  importance  of  the  man  of  the  robe,  the 
magistrate  and  the  attorney,  should  have  the 
largest  voice  in  the  making  of  the  laws.   Their 


The  Glovers  in  The  Eighteenth  Century  49 

product,  they  argued,  was  bringing  money 
into  France  from  England,  Germany,  Switzer- 
land, and  other  northern  countries,  where 
more  than  one-half  of  their  gloves  were 
sold.  In  1775,  it  is  stated,  out  of  100,000 
dozen  pairs  of  gloves  made  in  Grenoble, 
60,000  were  on  commission  for  the  foreigner. 
Naturally  enough  these  manufacturers  and 
merchants  felt  that  over  an  idle,  and  even 
vicious,  aristocracy,  their  opinions  and 
practical  needs  should  lead  in  shaping  public 
legislation. 

Further,  bitter  contention  involved  the 
business  men  of  Grenoble  with  the  lawyers 
of  that  city,  for  the  latter  persisted  in  look- 
ing down  upon  plain  citizens  not  bred  in  their 
profession,  and  in  excluding  them  from  pub- 
lic affairs.  In  1789  all  glovers  were  shut  out 
of  the  city  council.  In  view  of  the  fact  that 
they  "gave  work  daily  to  more  than  eight 
thousand  persons,  and  thus  enabled  to  live 
one-third  of  the  population  of  Grenoble,"  the 
glovers  resented  bitterly  this  deliberate  in- 
dignity from  "les  homines  du  robe."  It  only 
fired  them  the  more  to  throw  themselves  into 
the  great  conflict  ahead;  to  prove  that,  even 
if  they  could  not  discourse  so  eloquently  upon 
public  matters  as  those  who  had  insulted 
them,  (iat  least  they  knew  how  to  talk  less, 
act  more,  and  give  all  they  possessed"  to  the 
cause  of  justice. 

Thus,  with  the  greatest  crisis,  perhaps,  of 
modern  times  approaching,  the  glovers  found 
themselves,  workmen  and  masters  alike, 
drawn  almost  before  they  knew  it,  into  the 
very  heart  of  the  maelstrom.  Industry  itself 
was  at  a  standstill.     Nay,  it  was   slipping 


50  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

backward;  for  in  the  midst  of  such  internal 
suppression  of  terrible  passions,  such  scorch- 
ing hatreds,  and  ideals  to  set  the  world  on 
fire,  what  footing  could  there  be  for  the  arts 
of  peace? 

And  then  the  black  cloud  burst.  Grenoble 
was  drained  of  men  whom  the  actual  erup- 
tion of  the  Revolution  forced  to  flee  its  walls. 
It  was  emptied  of  soldiers  departing  for  the 
centre  of  action.  The  Revolution  put  out  of 
business  many  of  those  following  religious 
vocations,  whose  offices  now  were  enlisted  in 
grimmer  callings;  it  wiped  out  of  existence 
the  gentlemen  of  leisure.  There  had  been 
many  of  these  latter  in  the  beautiful,  old  city 
of  the  Dauphine. 

And  who  was  there  left  to  wear  gloves,  in 
all  the  length  and  breadth  of  France?  What 
was  to  become,  in  such  an  hour,  of  an  industry 
which  addressed  itself  to  the  pleasure-loving 
rich,  and  to  the  privileged  classes?  The  rich? 
There  were  no  more  rich.  Privilege — the 
title,  the  robe,  the  gown?  Lost  off  in  the 
wild  scurry  of  fugitives!  In  the  appalling 
reaction,  such  a  harmless  mark  of  elegance 
as  the  glove,  became,  so  to  speak,  branded 
with  horror.  To  be  seen  in  gloves  in  those 
days  was  to  be  marked  for  a  criminal  against 
mankind ;  to  be  suspected  of  being  a  Royalist, 
a  lover  of  the  king,  a  Judas  to  the  People. 

So  we  have  the  spectacle  of  the  glovers, 
"plain  men  of  business,"  throwing  over  every 
material  advantage,  to  hurl  themselves  and 
all  they  possessed  into  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. "The  Revolution!"  cries  M.  Xavier 
Roux  in  his  invaluable  book,  The  Glovers  of 
Grenoble,  published  for  private  circulation 


The  Glovers  in  The  Eighteenth  Century  51 

in  that  city  in  1887,  "they  themselves  desired 
it.  They  sacrificed  to  it  their  money  and  their 
effort."   Again  he  says : 

"It  would  seem  as  though,  in  their  eyes, 
there  were  no  longer  practical  'interests'; 
there  were  only  ideas.  Never,  perhaps,  as 
then,  has  a  whole  people  forgotten  its  indus- 
try, it  business  relations,  and  suffered  itself 
to  be  moved  by  principle  alone." 

And  yet  one  spectacle  more  remains — the 
silent  factories  on  the  Isere.  For  the  first 
time  since  the  founding  of  its  main  industry 
and  source  of  prosperity  in  the  past,  we 
behold  the  paradox  of  a  gloveless  Grenoble! 


Chapter  VI. 
GLOVES  IN  MANY  MARTS 

"She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door, 
With  room  about  her  hearth  for  all  mankind." 
— Trade:  James  Russell  Lowell. 

THE  first  glove-makers  in  Europe,  we  may 
suppose — certainly  the  first,  skilled  in 
that  art,  to  work  together  in  brotherhoods — 
were  the  monks  of  the  early  Middle  Ages.  In 
common  with  many  other  old-established 
handicrafts,  the  glove  trade  is  deeply  in- 
debted to  the  Church.  On  this  point,  William 
S.  Beck,  the  leading  English  authority  on 
glove  lore  of  thirty-five  years  ago,  has 
summed  up  the  conditions  most  interestingly 
and  clearlv.    He  savs : 

"Muscular  Christianity  is  no  new  doctrine. 
Faith  and  wrorks  were  once  literally  united 
in  a  secular  sense.  Before  corruptions  crept 
in,  and  while  monastic  establishments  main- 
tained the  simple  lines  on  which  they  had 
been  founded,  their  inmates  wrere  the  most 
skillful  and  industrious  of  artisans.  Weav- 
ing, illuminating,  gardening,  embroidery, 
woodwork — these  and  many  other  occupa- 
tions were  practiced  sedulously  by  the  holy 
friars.  The  original  idea  of  the  founders  of 
these  institutions  was  to  bring  together  a 
company  of  Christians  who  were  workers. 
Benedict  enjoins  his  followers  to  fight 
valiantly  against  idleness,  the  canker  of  truth. 

"  'Therefore,'  he  prescribes,  'the  brethren 
must  be  occupied  in  the  labor  of  the  hands, 
and  again  at  certain  times  in  divine  study.' 


Gloves  in  Many  Marts  53 


ur 


kThe  brethren  not  only  practiced,"  says 
Beck,  "but  taught.  The  monastery  became 
as  much  the  centre  of  industry  as  of  intel- 
lect ;  and  religion  was  made  an  active  worker 
with  commerce  in  furthering  national  inter- 
ests. The  efforts  of  the  brethren  often 
resulted  in  raising  local  manufactures  to 
great  excellence,  so  that  they  obtained  more 
than  local  celebrity.  To  the  monks  of  Bath, 
for  instance,  is  attributed  much  of  the  fame 
which  the  stout,  woolen  cloths  of  the  west 
of  England  yet  enjoy ;  and  under  their  active 
auspices,  we  are  told,  the  manufacture  was 
introduced,  established  and  brought  to  per- 
fection. In  their  commercial  curriculum 
glove-making  was  certainly  included,  as  well 
as  the  dressing  of  leather." 

As  early  as  790,  as  has  been  mentioned  in 
a  preceding  chapter,  Charlemagne  granted  to 
the  abbots  and  monks  of  Sithin  in  ancient 
France  unlimited  right  of  hunting  the  deer 
for  skins  of  which  to  make  gloves,  girdles 
and  covers  for  books.  These  gloves,  made  in 
the  monasteries,  assuredly  were  worn,  not 
only  by  the  higher  orders  of  the  clergy,  but 
by  the  king  and  his  nobles.  They  may  have 
been  a  direct  means  of  revenue  among  the 
monks;  in  any  case,  they  were  a  favor 
exchanged  for  the  patronage  and  support  of 
the  feudal  lords  in  maintaining  monastic 
property. 

Needless  to  say,  gloves  were  one  of  the 
luxuries  of  early  trade  and  barter,  and  it 
was  a  late  period  before  they  became,  to  any 
extent,  an  article  of  common  exchange.  As 
gifts  to  kings  and  personages  of  high  rank, 
they  were  borne  from  country  to  country,  and 


54  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

thus,  to  a  limited  degree,  were  put  into  circu- 
lation. The  Earl  of  Oxford,  on  one  occasion, 
curried  favor  with  Queen  Elizabeth  by  pre- 
senting Her  Majesty  with  beautiful,  per- 
fumed gloves  which  he,  personally,  had 
brought  to  her  from  Italy.  The  Queen,  we 
are  told,  was  so  vain  of  this  particular  pair 
of  gloves  that  she  had  her  portrait  painted 
in  them.  Little  by  little,  as  the  privilege  of 
wearing  gloves  spread  from  sovereign  to  sub- 
ject, their  trade  was  popularized,  and  the 
glove  market,  in  the  modern  sense,  grew  up 
in  response  to  the  increasing  demand. 

In  France,  glove-making  as  an  industry, 
independent  of  the  monasteries,  was  certainly 
well  established  in  the  twelfth  centurv.  In 
1190  we  find  the  Glovers  of  Paris  organized 
under  a  settled  code  of  statutes  received 
from  the  king.  Across  the  channel,  gloves 
are  first  mentioned,  as  an  incorporated  trade, 
in  Scotland,  where  the  glovers  formed  a  com- 
pany called  "The  Glovers  of  Perth"  during 
the  reign  of  Robert  III.,  who  figures  in 
Scott's  Fair  Maid  of  Perth,  and  ruled  between 
1390  and  1406.  This  company  was  principally 
employed  in  making  buck  and  doe-skin  gloves. 
Thence  the  trade  spread  over  Scotland,  but 
it  did  not  long  hold  its  importance.  "Dundee" 
gloves  enjo}red  a  picturesque  fame;  but  Hull 
remarks,  in  1834,  that  "they  had  little  more 
than  the  term  to  recommend  them."  Indeed, 
the  greater  part  of  them  were  made  in  Wor- 
cester, England,  and  were  sewn  cheaply, 
with  cotton,  instead  of  silk.  A  few  gloves 
were  also  turned  out  in  Montrose,  Scotland; 
the  leather  for  these,  however,  was  sent  from 
London. 


Gloves  in  Many  Marts  55 

Iu  Loudon,  the  glove  trade  had  existed  for 
many  centuries,  and  originally  was  carried 
on  in  connection  with  the  making  of  leather 
doublets  and  breeches.  Deer  and  sheep  skins 
were  used  chiefly;  but  after  the  introduction 
of  kid  gloves  into  England  from  France,  the 
former  country  began  to  make  kid  gloves 
also,  under  the  name  of  "London  town-made 
gloves,"  and  thus  to  follow  the  more  fas- 
tidious fashions  of  the  French.  The  glovers 
of  London  were  incorporated  in  the  four- 
teenth year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  who, 
on  the  sixth  of  September,  1638,  granted 
them  a  charter,  in  which  thev  were  styled: 
"The  Masters,  Wardens  and  Fellowship  of 
the  Worshipful  Company  of  Glovers  of  the 
City  of  London."  As  early  as  1464,  however, 
they  had  received  their  coat-of-arms.  Even 
so,  the  Paris  glovers  must  be  acceded  priority 
in  importance,  as  their  statutes  date  from 
1190.  Moreover,  it  has  justly  been  said  that 
gloves  ''came  over  with  the  Conqueror,"  and 
were  really  introduced  into  England  from 
France.  Previous  to  1066,  the  glove  produced 
by  the  Saxons  was  a  rude  and  shapeless  thing, 
while  the  Normans  brought  with  them  the 
clever  prototype  on  which  the  future  glove  of 
England  was  destined  to  be  modelled. 

Verv  earlv  in  their  historv  the  English 
began  to  experience  commercial  rivalry  with 
the  French,  and  one  of  the  first  products  to 
be  strongly  affected,  to  England's  detriment, 
was  gloves.  As  far  back  as  the  reign  of 
Edward  IV.,  in  1462,  we  find  the  English 
glove  trade  protected  by  prohibitory  laws. 
These  laws,  in  later  years,  must  have  become 
obsolete,  as  they  do  not  appear  ever  to  have 


56  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

been  repealed,  and  foreign  gloves  were 
imported  into  the  country  soon  after  the 
Reformation.  In  1564,  however,  England 
forbade  any  gloves  from  abroad  to  enter  her 
ports.  Nothing  was  said  about  the  raw 
materials  being  brought  from  other  lands; 
but  France  saw  fit  to  curtail  the  shipment  of 
kid  skins  outside  her  boundaries,  and  thus 
the  English  were  thrown  entirely  upon  their 
own  resources.  French  kid  gloves — whose 
quality,  after  all,  it  has  been  impossible  to 
equal  in  other  countries — continued  to  be 
smuggled  into  the  British  realm  to  a  greater 
extent,  we  may  believe,  than  the  authorities 
then  realized.  The  titled  people,  accustomed 
to  having  the  best  of  everything,  infinitely 
preferred  the  French  luxury  to  the  home- 
made article ;  and  so,  it  was  secretly  procured. 
But,  generally  speaking,  after  1564,  the  Eng- 
lish manufactured  their  own  gloves  from 
native  skins,  and  the  trade  increased  and 
became  prosperous. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  granting  of  the 
charter  in  1638,  certain  abuses  had  crept  into 
the  industry,  and  it  was  to  obviate  these  con- 
ditions  that  the  document  was  demanded  and 
granted  by  the  king.    It  reads : 

"Whereas,  by  an  humble  petition  presented 
unto  us  by  our  loveing  subjects,  living  in  and 
about  our  Cities  of  London  and  Westminster, 
using  the  arte,  trade  or  mistery  of  Glovers, 

"We  have  been  informed  that  their 
families  are  about  four  hundred  in  num- 
ber, and  upon  them  depending  about  three 
thousand  of  our  subjects,  who  are  much 
decayed  and  impoverished  by  reason  of  the 
great  confluence  of  persons  of  the  same  arte, 


Gloves  in  Many  Marts  57 

trade  or  mistery  into  our  said  Cities  of 
London  and  Westminster,  from  all  parts  of 
our  kingdoine  and  dominion  of  Wales,  that, 
for  the  most  parte,  have  scarcely  served  any 
time  thereunto,  working  of  gloves  in  cham- 
bers and  corners,  and  taking  apprentices 
under  them,  many  in  number,  as  well  women 
as  men,  that  become  burdensome  to  the 
parishes  wherein  they  inhabit,  and  are  a 
disordered  multitude,  living  without  proper 
government,  and  making  naughtie  and  de- 
ceitful gloves:  And  that  our  subjects  afore- 
said, that  lawfully  and  honestly  use  the 
said  arte,  trade  or  mistery,  are,  by  these 
means,  not  only  prejudiced  at  home,  but  the 
reputation  the  English  had  in  foreign  parts, 
where  they  were  a  great  commoditie  and 
held  in  goode  esteeme,  is  much  impaired.  And 
also,  that  by  the  engrossing  of  leather  into 
a  few  men's  hands,  our  said  subjects  are 
forced  to  buye  bad  leather  at  excessive  rates, 
to  their  further  impoverishment    .    .    .  ."  etc. 

•       •       •       l    I*   • 

In  view  of  such  abuses  as  these,  the 
London  Company  was  given  very  exclusive 
powers,  one  of  which  was  "to  search  for  and 
destroy  bad  or  defective  skins,  leather  or 
gloves." 

The  name  of  the  first  Master  of  the 
Glovers'  Company  has  come  down  to  us  in 
certain  parish  registers  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  in  which  he  is  mentioned  as  "William 
Smart,  of  the  parish  of  St.  Giles,  Cripple- 
gate,  Glover."  In  his  parish  the  trade  seems 
to  have  been  especially  flourishing. 

Perhaps  the  London  industry  labored 
under  greater  difficulties,  on  the  whole,  than 


58  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

glove-making  elsewhere.  It  had  constantly 
to  contend  against  the  secret  importation  of 
French  gloves  into  the  capital  city,  and  also 
to  maintain  its  superiority  over  the  imita- 
tions of  the  country  manufacturers;  for,  in 
England,  as  in  France,  competition  between 
the  various  glove  centres  was  intense.  Many 
London  manufacturers,  because  they  could 
not  make  their  ventures  pay,  actually  became 
importers  and  dealers  in  French  gloves — 
either  underhandedly,  or  openly,  as  the  laws 
of  the  land  would  permit.  Invariably  they 
found  this  greatly  to  their  advantage,  since 
the  price  of  French  gloves  was  low,  and  the 
manner  in  which  the  duty  could  be  evaded,  at 
that  date,  ridiculously  simple. 

Despite  the  feelings  and  the  best  efforts 
of  those  Englishmen  Avho  sought  to  foster 
and  strengthen  the  home  glove  trade,  the 
prohibitory  laws  remained  always  more  or 
less  lax — chiefly  because  the  aristocracy  and 
gentry  preferred  the  French  glove,  and,  for 
the  most  part,  were  not  interested  in  the 
welfare  of  English  glovers  and  artisans — 
until,  in  1825,  the  ban  on  imported  gloves 
was  officially  removed.  The  effect  upon 
France  was  electrical.  The  British  ports 
were  flung  open  to  her  at  a  time  when 
Grenoble,  Paris  and  her  other  glove  cities 
were  swinging  back  on  the  crest  of  the  new 
wave  of  industrial  prosperity  and  progress 
which  had  received  its  momentum  in  the 
days  of  the  Empire — a  period  which  wit- 
nessed the  revival  of  much  of  the  former 
elegance  of  France,  so  lately  eclipsed  by  the 
Revolution.  In  1832,  the  legal  importation 
of  French  gloves  into  England  was  1,516,663 


Gloves  in  Many  Marts  59 

pairs.  As  many  more,  in  that  same  year,  we 
may  believe,  were  also  smuggled  into  the 
country  by  the  old  methods.  To  France — and 
particularly  to  Grenoble — the  English  change 
of  policy  was  one  of  the  greatest  boons  which 
could  have  befallen  a  commercially  ambitious 
people. 

To  English  glovers,  on  the  contrary,  the 
results  were  anything  but  fortunate.  A  brief 
survey  of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  English 
glove  towns  may  serve  to  show  how  dearly 
the  glove  industry  was  forced  to  pay  for  the 
new  national  system  of  Free  Trade. 

In  Worcester,  close  rival  of  London,  the 
glove  craft  is  known  to  have  existed  since 
1571,  and  in  16*61  the  Glovers'  Company  of 
that  city  was  incorporated.  Here  an  elabo- 
rate manufacture  was  carried  on,  including 
"Venetian"  gloves,  made  in  imitation  of  those 
originally  imported  from  Venice.  As  long  as 
French  gloves  were  not  freely  admitted,  the 
beaver  gloves  of  Worcester  also  enjoyed  great 
prosperity ;  but  with  the  re-importation  of  the 
former,  beaver  gloves  went  out  of  fashion, 
and  the  Worcester  makers  turned  their  atten- 
tion to  alum  leather  gloves  which  Avere  pro- 
duced in  large  quantities  until  1825. 

The  complete  removal  of  the  prohibitory 
regulations,  however,  was  fatal  to  this  last- 
named  article,  which  could  not  hope  to  com- 
pete with  the  far  finer  product  from  abroad. 
From  that  date,  the  English  manufacture 
rapidly  decayed,  despite  every  effort  of  the 
masters  and  the  work  people  to  readjust  their 
difficulties.  How  hard  Worcester  itself  was 
hit,  is  shown  by  a  statement  given  by  the 
Committee  of  Operative  Glovers  in  1832.  It 
reads : 


60  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

"There  are  in  Worcester  120  master  manu- 
facturers, who  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
making,  upon  an  average,  one  hundred  dozens 
of  gloves  each,  per  week,  which  would  be 
12,000  per  week  for  the  whole;  but  they  are 
now  making  something  under  one-third  of 
that  number.  By  this  means,  about  £  3,000 
(or  $15,000)  per  week  is  taken  out  of  circula- 
tion in  wages  alone ;  which  money  used  imme- 
diately to  find  its  way  into  the  hands  of  the 
retail  trader  in  the  purchase  of  articles  of 
consumption." 

In  the  year  1825,  immediately  before  the 
introduction  of  French  gloves,  there  were 
few,  if  any,  work  people  idle  in  Worcester, 
and  the  trade  was  prosperous.  On  Janu 
ary  10,  1832,  out  of  one  thousand  men,  the 
state  of  employment  stood  as  follows: 

In  full  employ 113 

Partial  employ 465 

Unemployed  422 

Of  the  465,  many  did  not  average  more  than 
two  shillings,  sixpence,  per  week.  The  num- 
ber of  children  totally  dependent  upon  these 
one  thousand  men  was  1,748.  The  poor- 
houses  were  overrun,  and  large  sums  for 
relief  were  paid  out  of  the  public  pocket. 
Worcester,  the  chief  glove  city  outside  Lon- 
don, continued  to  decline. 

In  Woodstock  the  Glovers  never  were 
incorporated,  but  the  manufacture  was  pur- 
sued from  a  remote  period.  Some  of  the 
finest  English  craftsmen  labored  here  to  pro- 
duce a  very  beautiful  glove;  and  that  they 
attained  to  a  high  degree  of  perfection  is 
certified  bv  the  fact  that  the  Universitv  of 


Gloves  in  Many  Marts  61 

Oxford,  in  1616,  presented  James  I.  with 
"very  riche  gloves"  in  Woodstock.  Queen 
Elizabeth  also  received  gloves  from  the 
Woodstock  makers  in  one  of  her  festal 
"progresses."  In  those  times  only  English 
deer,  sheep  and  lamb  skins  were  used  in  the 
Woodstock  shops.  Since  1825,  however,  and 
the  introduction  of  French  kid  skins,  most 
of  their  ancient  prestige  has  been  lost. 

Hexham  furnished  a  peculiar  glove — so 
long-established  that  we  may  regard  it  as 
having  descended  unbrokenly  from  the  old 
Saxon  gluf — called  the  "Hexham  tan  glove," 
made  from  native  sheep  skins.  The  gaunt- 
lets attached  to  suits  of  armor  were  made  in 
the  same  style;  and  many  centuries  ago  it 
was  an  important  trade  in  that  place.  But 
even  its  modern  substitute  fell  into  disuse 
about  1830. 

York  "tans"  were  popular  in  the  days  of 
protection.  Beaver  gloves  occupied  3,000 
persons  in  Hereford,  until  the  sudden  indus- 
trial collapse  of  that  town  in  1825.  Ludlow 
turned  out  70,000  dozen  pairs  of  gloves 
annually,  and  employed  one-fifth  of  its  popu- 
lation in  that  trade,  collecting  the  skins 
from  Scotland.  In  1832,  "not  six  men,"  we 
read,  were  employed  in  glove-making  there. 
Kington  was  another  glove  centre  which 
failed  before  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  glove  workmen  of  Leominster 
numbered  900  in  1825;  and  on  the  eve  of 
legal  re-importation  its  factories  were  among 
the  busiest  in  the  kingdom.  In  1831,  its 
shops  were  deserted  by  all  but  163  artisans. 

A  community  whose  associations  with 
gloves     are     particularly     interesting,     was 


C2  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

Yeovil,  where  the  craft  was  established  as 
early  as  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
giving  employment  for  hundreds  of  years  to 
peasant  workmen  and  workwomen  living  over 
an  area  of  some  twenty  miles.  At  one  period 
the  number  of  its  masters,  cutters  and  sewers 
was  20,000,  and  about  300,000  dozens  of  gloves 
of  all  kinds  were  produced  annually.  An 
ancient  folk  song  of  the  Yeovil  glove-women 
has  recently  been  revived  by  the  Fuller  sis- 
ters, to  simple  harp  accompaniment,  just  as 
it  used  to  be  sung,  as  a  "round"  or  "part 
song,"  by  the  diligent  sewers  as  they  drew 
their  triangular  needles  in  and  out  of  their 
work.  It  is  very  quaint  and  tuneful,  mark- 
ing the  time  of  the  motions  in  sewing ;  and  its 
rhythm,  no  doubt,  facilitated  the  speed  and 
ease  with  which  the  women  plied  their  task. 

Yeovil  was  famous  for  its  military  gloves 
for  many  years.  Later,  a  fine  imitation  of 
kid  gloves  was  made  there;  but  these  were 
crushed  out  by  the  return  of  the  genuine 
foreign  product.  An  idyllic  industrial  com- 
munity was  transformed  almost  over  night 
into  a  desperate  and  dangerous  populace, 
demanding  by  force  the  means  of  bread-win- 
ning which  so  suddenly  had  been  denied  it. 
Hull  tells  us  that  to  quell  these  disturbances, 
two  troops  of  dragons  were  kept  continually 
in  the  town,  where,  a  few  years  before,  "a 
horse-soldier  would  have  been  looked  upon 
as  a  sort  of  centaur  by  the  lower  orders  of 
the  people." 

A  territory,  not  yet  mentioned,  which  was 
closely  bound  up  with  the  prosperity  of  the 
glove  trade  in  England,  was  Ireland. 
Limerick,   Dublin   and   Cork   formerly  were 


Gloves  in  Many  Marts  63 

noted  glove  cities.  The  "Limericks" — a  glove 
named  for  its  birthplace — were  of  exquisite 
texture,  and  were  greatly  in  favor  among 
the  aristocratic  English  for  their  property 
of  rendering  the  hand  of  the  wearer  smooth 
and  soft.  These  gloves  were  made  of  "morts" 
or  "slinks,"  the  skin  of  the  abortive,  or  very 
young,  calf,  lamb  or  kid.  Some  of  them  were 
so  beautifullv  delicate  that  thev  could  be 
enclosed  in  a  walnut  shell.  "No  glove  ever 
exceeded  the  Limerick  in  beauty,"  declares 
Hull.  Skin  collectors  went  all  over  Ireland, 
and  the  trade  was  a  great  boon  to  the  peas- 
antry. But  after  1825,  the  skins  were  no 
longer  worth  the  trouble  of  collecting,  and  a 
great  resource  of  the  country  was  lost. 

To  one  who  vieAvs  these  facts  it  must  be 
apparent  that  England  never  was  intended 
to  compete  with  France  in  the  skilled  making 
of  the  finest  gloves.  She  could  content  her 
people  with  the  home  product  only  by  exclud- 
ing all  foreign  gloves;  and  even  then,  the 
privileged,  who  could  bribe  the  government, 
insisted  upon  the  secret  importation  of  gloves 
from  France.  To  be  sure,  the  wave  of  protec- 
tion rose  high  in  1462,  in  167j5  and  in  1744; 
but,  in  every  event  there  came  a  reaction,  as 
far  as  the  complete  prohibition  of  gloves  was 
concerned.  Instead  of  supplying  her  own 
colonies  with  the  home  product,  England 
even  imported  gloves  from  France,  stored 
them  in  her  warehouses,  and  then  shipped 
them  at  an  ad  valorem  duty  to  her  East 
Indian  possessions! 

The  truth  of  the  matter  was,  French  glove- 
makers  early  had  won  the  first  place  in 
Europe.    Struggle  as  she  might,  it  is  exceed- 


64  Gloves,  Past  axd  Present 

ingly  doubtful  whether  her  rival  across  the 
Channel  ever  could  have  equalled  her  pres- 
tige. In  the  heavier  varieties  of  leather 
gloves,  English  makers  did  enjoy — and  still 
do  to-day — an  enviable  reputation;  but  here 
their  fame  stops.  England  had  neither  the 
inventive  skill  nor  the  natural  climate  to  pro- 
duce the  perfect  kid  glove,  for  which  France 
is  so  celebrated. 

In  France  itself,  we  alreadv  have  traced  in 
the  course  of  other  chapters,  more  or  less 
definitely,  the  development  of  the  glove 
market.  Particularlv  we  have  followed  the 
fortunes  of  the  trade  in  Grenoble,  as  being, 
most  distinctively,  tlie  glove  city  of  the  world. 
We  have  seen  Grenoble  guarding  her  precious 
art  from  ''the  foreigner'';  holding  herself  on 
the  defensive  against  other  French  cities,  of 
which,  under  the  old  laws  and  internal 
duties,  she  had  no  choice  but  to  be  jealous. 
We  have  noted  how  the  Revocation  ruined 
many  of  her  neighbors,  even  while  it  stimu- 
lated competition  beyond  the  confines  of 
France.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  Paris 
and  Grenoble  enjoyed  the  monoply  of  the 
glove  markets  of  Europe.  During  the 
eighteenth  century,  howeA^er,  these  cities 
began  to  cope  with  Germany,  Italy.  Austria, 
and  even  Russia,  in  glove-making.  The  vexed 
question  of  the  exportation  of  skins  was 
settled  to  the  advantage  of  the  manu- 
facturers at  home,  and  unnatural  rivalry 
between  the  different  French  cities  was 
smoothed  away. 

The  Revolution  saw  the  entire  industry, 
apparently,  snuffed  out.  And  yet,  so  deeply 
had  the  srlove  trade  taken  root  in  French  soil 


Gloves  in  Many  Marts  05 

that,  at  the  first  breath  of  the  revival  of  cul- 
ture and  refined  manners,  under  the  patron- 
age of  the  Empress  Josephine,  this  ancient 
art  again  sprang  into  being;  and,  like  a 
miracle,  the  resurrection  of  the  glovers  was 
complete.  At  this  point  the  great  clients  of 
to-day  appeared — the  United  States,  recon- 
structing itself,  and  building  up  its  com- 
merce with  the  foremost  marts  of  the  world. 
The  Americans  demanded,  among  other 
things,  the  most  beautiful  gloves  of  Europe. 

Grenoble,  on  recovering  from  the  shock  of 
the  ^Revolution,  the  long,  dark  days  of  the 
Terror,  found,  to  her  chagrin,  that  she  had 
a  formidable  rival  in  Paris.  Naturally,  the 
capital  city,  the  centre  of  the  court,  was  the 
first  place  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  renaissance 
of  glove-making.  Paris  swarmed  with 
workers,  and  could  get  more  sewers  at  lower 
wages  than  Grenoble  contained  within  its 
gates.  In  1810,  however,  the  southern  city 
began  to  reach  out  into  the  surrounding 
country  for  apprentices;  and  quickly  the 
peasant  people  responded  by  the  hundreds 
and  thousands.  Many  of  them  flocked  to  the 
town,  filling  the  places  left  destitute  by  the 
violent  events  of  the  last  twenty  years;  and, 
for  miles  about,  sewing  was  portioned  out, 
to  be  done  in  the  small  villages  and  in 
isolated  households  scattered  among  the 
mountains.  Grazing  and  goat  rearing  once 
more  became  a  profitable  occupation. 

It  proved  a  long,  proud  pull — but  the 
glovers  of  Grenoble  were  not  to  be  daunted. 
At  last  that  city's  ancient  prestige  was 
restored.  The  War  of  1870,  instead  of  being 
a  set-back,  was  really  a  help ;  for  the  remote- 


66  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

ness  of  Grenoble  from  the  seat  of  war  per- 
mitted her  to  continue  working,  and  orders 
from  England  and  America— which,  ordi- 
narily, might  have  sought  other  channels — 
she  filled  in  her  factories  and  home  shops.  In 
1872,  to  be  sure,  Grenoble,  and  all  the 
French  glovers,  suddenly  found  themselves 
up  against  tremendous,  and  totally  unex- 
pected, competition  with  Saxony,  Austria, 
Luxembourg  and  Belgium.  These  countries 
had  devised  a  means  of  placing  on  the  market 
remarkably  handsome  lambskin  gloves,  which 
rivalled  in  appearance  the  fine  French  kid 
product  and  sold  for  far  less.  But  a  few 
years  of  obstinately  insisting  upon  the  high 
prices  they  always  had  exacted  for  their 
goods,  soon  taught  the  French  manufac- 
turers the  necessity  of  finding  a  less  expensive 
kid;  and  with  the  development  of  new 
mechanical  inventions  for  cheaper  cutting 
and  sewing,  Grenoble  presently  regained  her 
firm  footing. 

If  the  seventeenth  century  must  be  con- 
sidered little  short  of  marvellous  as  regards 
glove-making  in  Grenoble — and  it  may  be 
compared,  indeed,  to  the  first  five  years  of  a 
child's  life,  in  which  he  makes,  proportion- 
ately, his  most  astonishing  progress — the 
achievements  of  the  industry  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  if  possible,  have  been  even  greater. 
Apart  from  the  facts  of  the  vicissitudes  the 
trade  had  had  to  face,  the  battles  it  had 
waged — and  won — all  the  vast  accoutre- 
ments of  modern  machinery  and  scientific 
appliances  now  come  into  play.  Also,  a  great, 
inventive  genius  has  arisen,  destined  to 
revolutionize  the  art  of  glove-making. 


Chapter  VII. 
FKOM  ARTIST  TO  ARTISAN 

"There  is  nothing  impossible  to  industry." — Clio,  one  of 
the  Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece. 

UNTIL  now  we  have  been  dealing  with 
revolutionary  movements  in  the  political 
sense,  and,  indirectly,  their  effects  upon  the 
glove  trade.  We  presently  have  to  consider 
the  great  revolution  within  the  industry 
itself,  which  came  with  the  introduction  of 
machinery  in  the  nineteenth  century,  whereby 
productive  labor  was  completely  transformed 
and   glove-making   permanently   modernized. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  fac- 
torv  system  was  firmly  established  in  Eng- 
land.  The  French,  however,  held  out  against 
the  system,  in  great  measure,  as  might  be 
expected  of  a  people  who  recently  had  fought 
so  passionately  for  individual  liberty.  Child 
labor  was  an  evil  against  which  the  French 
economists  were  vehement  in  their  protesta- 
tions. Apprenticing  the  young  was  an 
entirely  different  matter,  without  doubt, 
from  enslaving  children  from  dawn  to  dark 
in  mills,  where  they  were  compelled  to  repeat 
unceasingly  some  mechanical  detail  of  the 
process,  with  very  little  hope  of  enlighten- 
ment or  advancement  in  their  occupation. 
The  French,  progressive  but  not  greedy, 
sought  to  maintain  industry  upon  a  humane 
basis. 

With  the  revival  of  glove-making  at  the 
time  of  the  First  Empire,  the  honored  methods 
of  craftsmanship  still  were  in  practice. 
Gloves  were  made  entirely  by  hand,  and  the 


68  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

glove-maker — whether  designer  or  workman 
—was,  in  the  true  sense,  an  artist.  Patterns, 
cut  from  thin  boards,  were  laid  on  the  leather, 
and  the  shape  traced  with  lead  pencil.  These 
designs  were  cut  out  with  a  pair  of  long 
scissors.  The  parts  were  then  sewed  together. 
In  order  to  keep  the  stitches  uniform,  the 
pieces  were  placed  between  a  pair  of  jaws, 
the  holding  edges  of  which  were  serrated 
with  fine  saw  teeth;  and  the  sewer  by  pass- 
ing the  needle  forwards  and  backwards 
between  each  of  these  teeth  secured  neat, 
even-length  stitches.  The  embroidery  on  the 
backs  was  done  with  very  great  care,  and 
necessarily  consumed  much  time.  Although 
these  gloves  possessed  the  charm  peculiar  to 
most  hand-made  articles,  the  matter  of  fit 
was  purely  accidental,  for  it  depended  partly 
upon  the  elasticity  of  the  leather  and  even 
more  upon  the  skill  of  the  maker. 

In  point  of  skill  no  glove  workers  in  the 
world  at  that  time  surpassed  those  of 
Grenoble.  Relying  wholly  upon  the  art  of 
her  workmen  and  the  dexterity  of  her  sew- 
ing women,  the  ancient  glove  city  still  set  the 
standard  of  excellence  for  the  rest  of  Europe 
— even  in  the  years  when  she  was  not  in  a 
position  to  turn  out  so  many  gloves,  nor  sell 
her  product  so  cheaply,  as  Paris.  Though 
forced  for  some  time  to  take  secondary  place, 
quantitatively,  Grenoble  never  yielded  to  her 
rivals  in  the  matter  of  quality/  If  she  could 
not  produce  the  most  gloves,  she  at  least 
would  furnish  the  market  with  the  best  gloves. 

The  finest  tawed  skins  to  be  had  were 
prepared  for  the  Grenoble  glovers  in  the  mills 
at  Millau  and  Annonay.    Their  value  excelled 


From  Artist  to  Artisan  69 

that  of  any  skins  tawed  by  foreigners.  On 
this  fact,  however,  the  prestige  of  the 
Grenoble  glove  did  not  rest.  These  beautiful 
skins  were  sent  abroad  to  manufacturers  all 
over  Europe,  so,  in  themselves,  they  did  not 
create  a  monopoty  in  favor  of  the  city  really 
responsible  for  their  superiority.  No,  it  was 
her  method  of  making  gloves,  the  cutting  and 
the  sewing  of  them,  which  actually  dis- 
tinguished Grenoble.  Her  workers  enjoyed  a 
privileged  position  in  the  industry;  they 
were  celebrated  far  and  near.  Other  locali- 
ties did  their  best  to  entice  them  away; 
especially  did  Germany,  Piedmont  and 
Switzerland  offer  inducements,  and,  whenever 
possible,  strangers  would  enter  the  Grenoble 
shops  to  spy  upon  these  artists  and  steal  their 
secrets.  But  thev  were  never  able  to  carry 
this  far  enough  to  establish  any  great  com- 
petition in  the  international  markets.  The 
Grenoble  glove  continued  to  be  much  sought 
and  exceedingly  envied.  Not  able  to  procure 
elsewhere  gloves  of  equal  beauty,  shapeliness 
and  finish,  merchants  far  and  wide  were 
obliged  to  supply  themselves  from  the  city  of 
inimitable  artists  in  the  Dauphine;  and 
thus,  without  the  slightest  compulsion  from 
the  Grenoble  manufacturers,  these  traders 
stimulated  their  business  and  spread  their 
fame. 

The  sewing  women,  M.  Koux  tells  us,  con- 
stituted a  peculiar  source  of  wealth  to  the 
Grenoble  industry.  Their  exquisite  hand- 
work defied  all  rivalry;  there  were  no  other 
such  accomplished  sewers  in  all  France,  nor 
in  any  other  country.  To-dav  thev  are  still 
celebrated ;  but  then  they  formed  an  exclusive 


70  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

factor  of  Grenoble's  prestige.  Apprenticed 
while  young  girls,  they  looked  upon  glove- 
making  as  a  career,  an  art  in  which  they 
desired  to  perfect  themselves.  The  traditions 
of  glove-making  forebears  held  them  to  the 
ancient  metier  of  the  place;  and  even  more 
than  the  glovers  and  the  male  workers,  they 
met  the  encroachments  of  self-seeking  for- 
eigners with  an  intuitive  distrust  and  proud 
resistance. 

Under  such  conditions  as  these,  the  glove 
industry  in  Grenoble  was  able  to  support 
successfully  the  extreme  vicissitudes  of  the 
post-Eevolutionary  era.  Even  while  the  wave 
of  prosperity  rolled,  now  high,  now  low,  in 
face  of  other  manufacturers  it  maintained  an 
invincible  superiority — none  excelled  the  skill 
of  its  handwork.  Others  were  unable  to 
counterfeit  this;  it  could  not  be  imitated; 
never  elsewhere  was  it  equalled. 

But  meanwhile,  right  at  home,  unsuspected 
forces  were  slowly  working,  which  were 
destined  to  prove  at  the  same  time  propitious 
and  full  of  danger  for  the  Grenoble  glovers. 
The  real  revolution  was  approaching;  the 
great,  internal  change  which  was  to  be  the 
undoing  of  the  old,  the  uprearing  of  a  new 
industrial  system  upon  the  razed  foundations 
of  the  old.  The  days  of  the  craftsman  and  the 
artist  were  numbered. 

Every  genius  has  his  forerunner.  About 
the  year  1819,  Vallet  d'Artois,  a  French 
glove  manufacturer,  invented  steel  punches 
in  three  sizes,  each  of  which  would  cut,  or 
punch,  out  of  leather  two  dozen  gloves  at 
once.  This  invention  was  the  first  step  toward 
the  introduction  of  modern  machinerv  into 


From  Artist  to  Artisan  71 

the  glove  industry.  It  multiplied  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  glove  cutter,  so  far  as  speed  was 
concerned,  twenty-four  times. 

In  the  same  year,  the  genius  who  was 
finally  to  revolutionize  glove-making  was 
barely  entering  young  manhood.  Xavier 
Jouvin  has  sometimes  been  called  a  Parisian. 
He  was  born,  however,  in  Grenoble,  on  the 
eighth  day  of  December,  1800,  in  the  house 
in  the  rue  St.  Laurent,  now  bearing  the  num- 
ber 57.  Jouvin  was  in  Paris  as  a  student  in 
1817,  and  he  lived  there  again  in  1825.  But 
he  never  felt  at  home  in  the  least  in  the 
French  capital.  He  was  a  provincial  by  tra- 
dition, birth  and  natural  inclination;  a 
student  and  a  dreamer  whose  spirit  was 
nourished  bv  seclusion — by  journevim*  inward 
and  exploring  its  own  solitudes  rather  than 
by  contact  with  men  and  affairs. 

It  seems  significant  that  the  first  year  of 
the  new  centurv  should  have  ushered  into 
the  Avorld  one  of  the  leading  mechanical 
minds  of  that  epoch.  It  is  also  strikingly 
appropriate  that  Jouvin  should  have  been  a 
native  of  Grenoble,  since  his  name,  above  all 
others,  is  identified  with  the  modern  industry 
of  glove-making.  He  was  a  visionary,  whose 
single  need  was  the  necessity  of  inventing 
something  all  his  days.  He  could  not  see  any 
kind  of  work  going  on  near  him  but  he  must 
think  how  he  could  make  it  easier  by  the 
creation  of  some  mechanical  instrument. 
Without  ambition  for  fortune  or  for  fame, 
he  was  only  too  contented  to  proscribe  his 
life  within  apparently  narrow  limits.  Return- 
ing from  Paris  in  1825,  he  was  resolved  to 
enjoy    obscurity,    the    provincial    and    rural 


TO 


72  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

environment  in  which  his  talent  throve ;  while 
occupying  his  mind  almost  exclusively  with 
the  study  of  mechanical  processes  necessary 
to  assure  exact  regularity  in  cutting  gloves. 

Already  this  young  man  had  invented  a 
mowing  machine,  and  a  planisphere,  by 
means  of  which,  automatically,  one  could 
determine  the  position  of  the  stars  for  every 
night  in  the  year.  Now,  in  turning  his  atten- 
tion to  the  problem  of  regularity  of  cut  in 
gloves,  he  was  really  broaching  the  great 
factor  which  has  given  modern  glove-making 
its  ascendency  over  the  old  method — namely, 
the  element  of  fit.  At  the  outset  he  perceived 
the  exact  terms  of  the  problem  which  he 
had  set  himself  to  solve.  First,  he  must  make 
a  general  classification  of  the  different  sizes 
and  shapes  of  hands  one  meets;  secondly,  he 
must  ascertain  the  precise  extension  of  the 
skin  required  for  the  measurements  of  the 
hand  he  wished  to  fit. 

By  minutely  studying  hands  in  the  Hos- 
pital of  Grenoble,  Jouvin  discovered  and 
wrote  out  in  a  rectangle  thirty-two  different 
sizes  of  hands.  He  furthermore  recognized 
five  types — very  broad,  broad,  medium,  slen- 
der and  very  slender — each  type  being 
divided  into  two  classes.  As  there  were 
thirty-two  sizes  for  each  class,  and  five  types 
altogether,  this  made  three  hundred  and 
twenty  different  numbers  of  gloves,  which 
proved  more  than  requisite  to  the  demands  of 
the  finest  trade. 

The  dies  which  Jouvin  invented  and  per- 
fected for  cutting  out  these  three  hundred 
and  twenty  different  gradations  of  gloves 
consisted  of  the  calibre,  or  glove  pattern,  and 


From  Artist  to  Artisan  73 

the  punch,  or  emporte-piece,  and  were  made 
of  fine  tempered  steel  blades  fastened  to  a 
back  of  cast  iron.  In  making  the  heavier 
grades  of  gloves,  the  die  was  struck  with  a 
ponderous  mallet,  cutting  only  one  thickness 
at  a  time.  By  cutting  only  one  piece  in  this 
way,  the  artisan  avoided  any  holes  in  the 
skins  which  might  have  been  made  in  killing 
the  wild  animal  or  in  dressing  the  leather. 
The  thumbs  and  gussets,  or  fourchettes — the 
strips  inserted  to  form  the  sides  of  the 
fingers — were  cut  with  separate  dies  from 
pieces  not  large  enough  for  the  body  of  the 
glove,  thus  utilizing  nearly  every  scrap  of 
the  material.  As  the  leather  was  first  placed 
upon  a  block  to  receive  the  blows  of  the 
mallet,  this  grade  of  goods  came  to  be  called 
"block  cut."  In  "table  cut"  gloves,  however, 
the  leather  was  tranked  out  on  a  table  and 
shaped  for  the  size  desired.  Then,  by  means 
of  a  power  press  many  pairs  were  cut  at  once. 
The  nicest  part  of  this  process  consists  in 
getting  the  leather  in  proper  shape.  Dif- 
ferent sizes  may  be  cut  with  the  same  pattern 
by  estimating  accurately  the  elasticity  of  the 
leather.  Jouvin's  calibre  is  the  same  by 
which — under  many  different  systems,  of 
course — all  gloves  are  cut  to-day. 

Jouvin  also  studied  to  determine  what 
degrees  of  pressure  the  skin  will  withstand 
in  different  parts,  in  order  that,  in  every 
case,  just  the  right  piece  of  material  should 
be  selected  to  produce  the  measurements 
desired.  Expert  knowledge  of  skins  is  equally 
important  with  proper  use  of  utensils  in  pro- 
ducing an  accurately  fitting  glove. 


74  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

In  his  work  Jouvin  sought  the  satisfaction 
of  the  scientist  and  the  artist  rather  than  anv 
financial  benefit  which  might  have  accrued 
to  him  from  his  remarkable  sj^stem.  When 
he  had  completed  his  invention,  he  hardly 
realized  its  pecuniary  value;  he  took  out  a 
patent  for  France,  but  not  for  any  foreign 
country.  The  immediate  effect  of  his  achieve- 
ment was  somewhat  curious. 

During  Jouvin's  own  lifetime  his  inven- 
tion not  only  failed  to  profit  the  glovers  of  his 
native  city,  but  actually  worked  them  harm. 
He  himself  groped  his  way  for  several  years, 
in  an  attempt  to  find  capital  and  workers 
which  should  prove  the  usefulness  of  his  new 
method.  But  the  manufacturers  scoffed  at 
him.  They  declared  that  Jouvin  had  "vulgar- 
ized'' glove  cutting.  The  glove  cutter  was 
dethroned;  he  was  no  longer  an  artist.  A 
machine  did  his  work,  and  it  was  evident 
that  with  this  machine  a  good  cutter  could 
turn  out  good  gloves  from  poor  skins,  while 
a  poor  cutter  would  turn  out  poor  gloves 
from  good  skins.  The  calibre  certainly  was  a 
mischievous  device,  and  had  turned  the  glove 
art  topsy-turvy ! 

Like  any  inventor,  Jouvin  himself  was  not 
greatly  affected  by  all  this  talk,  nor  by  the 
rebuffs  he  met  whenever  he  tried  to  interest 
business  men;  for  he  was  absorbed  in  the 
possibilities  of  further  improvement  upon 
his  invention.  He  had  discovered  the  calibre 
in  1834;  in  1838 — without  having  drawn  a 
cent  of  profit  thus  far — he  added  the  punch, 
or  emporte-piece,  for  automatically  cutting 
gloves  to  measure.  In  the  following  year, 
however,    his    work    suddenly    received    con- 


From  Artist  to  Artisan  75 

spicuous  public  notice.  It  was  rewarded  a 
bronze  medal  at  the  Industrial  Exposition  in 
Paris.  From  that  moment,  Jouvin's  future 
as  a  glove  manufacturer  was  assured,  for  men 
with  money  rallied  to  his  support.  The  first 
thing  the  Grenoble  glovers  knew,  Germany, 
Switzerland  and  Italy  had  all  seized  upon 
their  fellow-citizen's  admirable  invention  and 
were  turning  it  to  tremendous  commercial 
account.  Their  outputs  were  increasing  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  But,  in  France,  one  fac- 
tory only — that  of  the  inventor — worked, 
while  his  compatriots  stood  still  for  the 
benefit  of  foreign  competitors  to  whom  the 
Jouvin  system  was  free,  while  debarred  from 
French  manufacturers  under  the  terms  of 
the  patent. 

Of  course,  lawsuits  against  Jouvin  arose, 
as  other  glovers  endeavored  to  have  the  broad, 
general  idea  of  stamping  out  gloves  become 
domaine  public,  or  public  property.  But  the 
industry  had  so  far  diminished  in  Grenoble 
in  1840  that  that  city  was  not  mentioned  as 
one  of  the  principle  producers  of  gloves. 

Without  doubt,  the  conservative  manu- 
facturers of  that  town  learned  their  lesson. 
For,  in  1849,  the  year  in  which  the  Jouvin 
patents  expired,  they  hastened  to  shake  off 
this  decade  of  depression  which  had  seen 
them  bound  hand  and  foot,  while  the  glove- 
makers  of  other  lands  rapidly  eclipsed  them 
in  importance ;  and  immediately  they  installed 
in  their  shops  the  new  system.  With  their 
unrivalled  skill  and  natural  precedence  now 
reinforced  by  up-to-date  mechanical  methods, 
the  glovers  of  Grenoble  effected  a  lightning 
recovery.     Moreover,   their  misfortunes  had 


76  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

not  been  due  to  the  lack  of  mechanical  equip- 
ment alone.  Financial  panic  in  America  had 
robbed  them  temporarily  of  one  of  their  best 
clients;  and  the  price  of  skins  had  risen  to 
an  exorbitant  figure  in  France,  even  while 
foreigners  knew  how  to  get  them,  without 
paying  a  heavy  duty,  from  Grenoble's  own 
mills  at  Annonay. 

These  conditions,  however,  were  soon  to 
be  righted.  But  another  challenge  to  the  old 
regime  loomed  a  few  years  ahead.  In  1867, 
at  the  Paris  Exposition,  some  Grenoble 
glovers  paused  in  front  of  a  fragile,  little 
machine,  glanced  at  it  with  curiosity,  and 
went  home  without  any  idea  that  that  modest 
piece  of  mechanism  was  going  to  cap  the 
work  of  the  calibre;  and  that  shortly  the 
whole  world  would  possess  what,  for  two  cen- 
turies, had  been  the  fortune  and  renown  of 
their  native  city — the  ability  to  sew  gloves 
perfectly. 

The  era  of  labor-saving,  quantity-multiply- 
and  cost-reducing  machinery  had  indeed 
arrived;  and  Grenoble,  once  she  realized  the 
full  significance  of  "vulgarizing"  her  ancient 
trade,  did  not  lag  far  behind.  She  faced  and 
conquered  great  difficulties  in  the  nineteenth 
century — notably,  the  large  increase  in  the 
"centres"  of  glove-making,  as  the  trade  grew 
and  improved  abroad ;  and  also  she  succeeded 
in  finding  a  cheap,  but  good,  kid  to  compete 
with  the  German  and  Italian  lambskins 
which  looked  so  well  that  they  satisfied  the 
taste  of  the  general  public.  These  things  she 
accomplished  with  the  help  of  modern 
machinery;  for  which,  in  a  peculiarly  thank- 
less and  round-about  way,  the  city  owed  a 


From  Artist  to  Artisan  77 

great  debt  to  one  of  her  own  sons.  The 
European  glove  world  paid  its  tribute  to 
Jouvin  in  1851,  when  the  Universal  Exposi- 
tion held  in  Vienna  voted  him  a  Diploma  of 
Honor. 

A  later  contribution  to  the  technique 
of  the  glove  was  the  modern  style  of 
fastener,  introduced,  about  1855,  by  M.  Ray- 
mond of  Grenoble.  His  factory  was  a  valu- 
able addition  to  the  leading  industry  of  that 
city.  Roux  gives  credit  to  Raymond  for  all 
the  various  changes  and  improvements  in 
glove  fasteners  which  we  have  to-day.  The 
old-fashioned  lacing  has  been  completely 
replaced  by  the  clasp,  the  neatness  and 
efficiency  of  which  could  hardly  be  bettered. 

Thus,  in  the  last  century,  we  see  virtually 
every  trace  of  the  immemorial  methods  of 
glove-making  vanish  before  the  swift  incur- 
sion of  modern  machinery.  A  few  hand-sewn 
gloves  alone  remain  to  remind  us  of  the  days 
when  the  couiurieres,  peasant  women  and 
girls  gathered  in  groups  in  cottages  on  the 
outskirts  of  Grenoble,  or  in  the  ateliers  of  the 
town,  to  sing  as  they  sewed  gloves  for  the 
nobility  and  the  gentry  of  a  former  time.  But 
the  art  has  gained  by  the  inestimable  assets 
of  fit  and  individuality  in  gloves :  by  the 
great  numbers,  also,  in  which  gloves  to-day 
are  supplied,  that  we  all  may  delight  in  wear- 
ing them. 

In  respect  to  Grenoble,  moreover,  it  should 
be  observed  that,  through  all  these  changes 
and  commercializing  influences,  she  has  sacri- 
ficed not  a  whit  of  her  invincible  good  taste. 
Against  foreign  competition  and  the  paraly- 
sis   which    she    suffered    under    the    Jouvin 


78  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

patent,  she  had  only  the  superiority  of  her 
product  to  offer — the  suppleness  of  her  skins, 
the  elegance  of  their  cut,  the  beauty  of  the 
tints  artificially  applied,  the  finish  and  dura- 
bility of  her  sewing.  But  these  were  enough 
to  keep  her  art  alive.  They  still  prevail — 
and  in  even  higher  degree — in  the  gloves  of 
Grenoble  makers  to-day. 

In  the  evolution  from  artist  to  artisan, 
there  is  little  room  for  regret.  Already  the 
glove-workers  of  France  have  readjusted  very 
largely  to  changed  conditions  within  the 
industry;  while  the  consumer  and  producer 
alike  may  rejoice  in  the  widespread  accessi- 
bility of  the  finest  gloves  in  the  world. 


Chapter  VIII. 
ANNONAY  AND  ITS  INDUSTRY 

"In  France,  kid-culture  is  carried  to  perfection.  ...  To 
this  is  due  the  value  of  the  French  skins,  which  command 
higher  prices  than   any   in   the   market." — William   S.  Beck. 

NO  history  of  gloves  would  be  complete 
which  failed  to  take  into  account  the 
old  French  town  of  Annonay  and  its  cele- 
brated industry.  Annonay  has  been  men- 
tioned several  times  already  in  the  course  of 
these  pages,  when  the  subject  of  fine  French 
skins  was  touched  upon,  and  especially  in 
connection  with  the  difficulties  which  arose 
over  the  free  exportation  of  these  beautiful 
leathers  to  manufacturers  outside  France. 
At  once  the  foundation  of  the  glovers'  pros- 
perity, and  the  source  to  them  of  hardship 
and  bitter  contention  for  want  of  proper 
domestic  protection  of  the  trade  in  skins, 
both  Annonay  and  the  town  of  Millau  were 
famous  as  old-established  centres  of  the  taw- 
ing industry. 

And  right  here,  for  the  benefit  of  the  lay- 
man, it  might  not  come  amiss  to  define  the 
distinction  between  the  well-known  process 
of  tanning  leather,  and  the  less  familiar 
method  of  dressing  skins,  called  tawing. 
The  latter  is  applied  almost  exclusively  to 
leathers  in  preparation  for  glove-making.  It 
differs  from  ordinary  tanning  in  point  of  the 
greater  care  and  cleanliness  of  all  the  opera- 
tions. Also,  the  dressed  skin  is  submitted  to 
a  brief  fermentation,  by  piling  one  piece  upon 
another  in  a  very  warm  place,  so  that,  under 
the  influence  of  the  heat  and  the  pressure,  the 


80  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

softness  and  flexibility  of  the  leather  may  be 
increased.  The  actual  "tawing"  itself  con- 
sists in  treating  the  skins  with  a  mixture  of 
flour,  the  yolks  of  eggs  and  alum.  On  the  com- 
pletion of  this  operation,  they  are  stretched 
by  hand  and  dried  as  rapidly  as  possible. 

The  expert  preparation  of  glove  leather, 
then,  was  the  chief  accomplishment  of 
Annonay  and  Millau.  In  regard  to  the  latter, 
it  was  that  city  which  particularly  was 
embarrassed  by  the  lambskin  competition  of 
1872.  Millau  long  had  made  a  specialty  of 
tawing  lambskin,  but  had  not  discovered  the 
secret  of  making  the  fine-looking  gloves  which 
now,  suddenly,  were  put  upon  the  market  by 
Germany  and  other  foreign  countries.  These 
manufacturers  abroad  redoubled  their  activi- 
ties, initiating  new  styles  and  even  receiving- 
compensations  from  their  governments.  For 
a  time  Millau  folded  its  arms  and  submitted, 
as  M.  Koux  tells  us,  "in  tranquil  despair." 

But  before  long  Millau  makers  were  hard 
at  work  studying  and  experimenting  to  pro- 
duce a  cheaper  grade  of  glove  which,  like 
its  rivals  abroad  should  meet  the  growing 
demand  for  a  popular-price  article  with  all 
the  fine  appearance  of  genuine  kid.  The 
glove  trade,  along  with  other  industries  of 
the  period,  found  that  it  must  adapt  itself  to 
the  insistencv  on  democratization  of  all 
products.  It  must  recognize  the  spirit  of  the 
times;  and  in  the  cause  of  social  equality,  it 
must  furnish  those  who  could  not,  or  would 
not,  buy  expensive  kid  gloves,  with  an  excel- 
lent substitute,  as  far  as  style  and  finish 
were  concerned. 


Annonay  and  Its  Industry  81 

Lambskins,  at  this  period,  "became  the 
glove  of  democracy ;  and  Millau,  quickly  over- 
taking her  foreign  competitors,  is  to-day  pro- 
ducing fine  lambskin  gloves  which  are  second 
to  none  in  Europe. 

But,  to  return  to  Annonay,  whose  name  is 
identified  with  the  ancient  art  of  tawing  as 
far  back,  probably,  as  the  fourteenth  century ! 
The  place  has  been  called — and  not  inap- 
propriately— the  twin  city  of  Grenoble.  Its 
industry,  certainly,  went  hand  in  hand  and 
ranked  equally  in  importance  with  that  of 
the  celebrated  glove  town.  Without  Annonay 
tanners  and  tawers  Grenoble  would  have 
lacked  the  fine  skins  indispensable  to  her 
manufacture,  and  might  never  have  held 
first  position  as  a  producer  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful gloves  in  the  world. 

Also,  geographically,  there  is  a  striking 
resemblance  between  the  two  cities,  which 
likewise  has  an  important  bearing  upon  their 
affiliations  in  commerce.  Annonay,  in  the 
department  of  the  Ardeche,  in  south-eastern 
France,  is  irregularly  and  picturesquely  built 
on  several  small  hills,  overlooking  the  deep 
gorges  of  the  Deome  and  the  Cance.  Thus, 
it  stands  near  the  confluence  of  two  large, 
swift  rivers,  almost  exactly  as  Grenoble  does ; 
and  the  waters  of  these  rivers — torrential 
streams,  subject  to  sudden  floods — supply 
power  to  the  factories  of  the  town.  By  means 
of  a  dam  across  the  Ternay,  a  tributary  of 
the  Deome,  to  the  northwest  of  the  city,  a 
reservoir  is  provided,  in  which  an  additional 
supply  of  water,  for  both  industrial  and 
domestic  purposes,  is  stored.  Moreover,  the 
river  Ardeche  flows  in  close  proximity — like 


82  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

the  Isere  unexcelled  for  its  purity.  By  virtue 
of  the  especial  qualities  of  its  waters,  Anno- 
nay  has  become  what  it  is — the  chief  home  of 
French  dressers  of  glace  kid  skins. 

The  climate,  like  that  environing  Grenoble, 
is  particularly  favorable  to  the  raising  of 
goats  and  sheep.  The  Cevannes  mountains 
almost  cover  the  department  of  the  Ardeche, 
and  their  spurs  provide  rich  grazing  country. 
The  peasants  are  shepherds  worthy  of  that 
ancient  calling.  The  young  kids  are  as  care- 
fully nurtured  and  watched  over  as  are  the 
children  in  the  family,  for  absolutely  nothing 
must  be  allowed  to  cause  any  defects  in  their 
skins.  They  must  be  killed  at  a  tender  age, 
for  as  soon  as  the  kid  begins  to  eat  herbage, 
his  pelt  is  injured  for  the  finer  qualities  of 
gloves.  Indeed,  the  perfect  glove  animal  is 
milk-fed — and  necessarily  short-lived. 

However,  when  the  kids  are  allowed  to 
grow  up  and  become  goats,  their  skins  are 
still  useful  for  the  heavier,  stronger  grades 
of  gloves.  Such  are  termed  chevrettes,  that 
being  the  French  name  for  goats.  The  same 
care  is  exercised  that  these  animals  shall  not 
meet  with  any  injury  to  their  hides,  and  good 
chevrette  leather  is  invaluable  for  pique  and 
prickseam  gloves,  which  rank  very  high 
indeed. 

Formerly,  skins  of  chamoix,  and  both  wild 
and  domestic  animals,  were  collected  all  over 
the  country  by  a  class  of  people  correspond- 
ing to  what  were  known  in  England  as 
"higglers."  Ultimately,  all  these  trophies 
found  their  way  into  the  hands  of  the  famous 
dressers  of  Annonay.  In  these  days,  the 
leading    glove    manufacturers    of    Grenoble 


Annonay  and  Its  Industry  83 

buy  their  skins  "in  the  raw"  at  the  Spring 
fairs,  which  are  held  at  various  centres 
throughout  France.  When  they  have  as- 
sembled their  lots,  they  then  ship  them  to 
the  dressing  factory  in  Annonay. 

"The  dressing  of  leather,"  says  Hull,  in  his 
History  of  the  Glove  Trade,  published  in  Eng- 
land in  1834,  "formed  one  of  the  earliest  occu- 
pations of  mankind  in  all  countries;  and  it 
is  a  significant  fact  that  Laplanders,  Africans 
and  Canadian  Indians  dress  skins  in  the 
highest  perfection,  altho'  their  means  and 
processes  necessarily  are  of  the  rudest  kind. 
The  Laplanders  also  make  very  tolerable 
gloves." 

With  all  due  respect  to  the  Laplanders, 
and  other  aborigines,  we  venture  to  place 
the  tawers  of  Annonay  above  even  those 
primitive  artists  to  whom  Mr.  Hull  gave  first 
credit.  Mr.  Hull  wrote  his  little  book  to 
prove  that  the  free  trade  policy  would  be  the 
ruination  of  England's  home  manufactures — 
nor  was  he  greatly  mistaken,  as  far  as  the 
glove  business  of  his  dav  was  concerned. 
Naturally,  this  vehement  protectionist  had 
little  good  to  say  of  French  methods — which 
accounts,  perhaps,  for  his  going  back  to  the 
uncivilized  peoples  to  pay  his  debt  for  the 
art  of  leather-dressing;  in  England,  certainly, 
at  that  period,  skill  in  preparing  glove  skins 
was  sadly  lacking. 

The  finest  qualities  of  French  kid  skins, 
suitable  for  glace  hand-wear,  come  from  the 
valleys  of  the  Loire,  the  Rhone,  the  Poiton 
and  Auvergne.  Inferior  to  these  are  those 
which  emanate  from  the  extreme  south  of 


84  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

France,  from  Provence  and  the  Pyrenees ;  as 
one  nears  Spain,  the  skins  coarsen. 

At  Annonay,  the  skin-dressing  industry — 
like  that  of  glove-making  at  Grenoble — has 
been  established  for  so  many  centuries,  that 
long  family  lines  have  devoted  themselves 
for  successive  generations  to  that  single  call- 
ing. Fathers,  sons  and  grandchildren  have 
passed  their  lives  and  spent  their  efforts  in 
furthering  and  perfecting  the  art  of  prepar- 
ing glove  skins  which  should  be  without  a 
rival.  The  "French  National"  skins  are  the 
result.  Doubtless  they  are  the  finest  skins 
in  the  world. 

To  appreciate  fully  the  perfection  of  this 
art,  and  its  importance  to  the  science  of 
glove-making,  a  visit  to  the  largest  skin- 
dressing  establishment  in  Annonay  to-dav 
would  appear  almost  indispensable.  In 
imagination,  accordingly,  let  us  enter  the 
factory  in  question,  owned  and  operated  by 
Messrs.  Briancon  &  Company.  We  find  it  a 
large,  airy,  well-lighted,  four-storied  struc- 
ture, recently  built  for  the  express  purpose 
for  which  it  is  now  used. 

When  the  skins  "in  the  hair"  arrive  at  this 
factory  they  are  at  once  hoisted  to  the  top 
floor,  where  they  are  unpacked  and  piled  up 
in  stacks.  The  dresser  holds  the  skins  on 
account  of  the  manufacturer  of  gloves  who 
has  bought  them  at  the  fairs.  To  each  manu- 
facturer is  allotted  sufficient  floor  space  in 
the  fourth  storv  of  the  dressing  factory  to 
receive  his  supply  of  skins.  Each  stack  is 
ticketed  with  the  name  of  the  owner  or 
owners — that  is,  the  manufacturer — and  its 
place  of  origin. 


Axxoxay  axd  Its  Ixdustry  85 

Each  layer  of  skins,  as  placed  on  the  stack, 
is  well  sprinkled  with  naphtha  to  disinfect 
and  keep  it  wholesome.  If  the  hides  are  to 
remain  long  in  the  stacks  before  going  into 
the  dressing,  they  must  be  nnstacked  from 
time  to  time,  shaken  out,  aired,  and  restacked, 
to  prevent  them  from  overheating.  When  the 
dresser  receives  from  the  manufacturer  in- 
structions to  put  one  of  his  lots  into  the 
dressing,  the  first  thing  that  has  to  be  done 
is  carefully  to  inspect  each  skin  in  the  pile; 
it  is  then  classified  as  "hard,"  "extra  strong," 
or  "medium" ;  as  "fine"  or  "superfine." 

After  all  the  skins  in  the  stack  have  been 
looked  over,  and  sorted  in  this  manner,  they 
are  carried  to  the  ground  floor  of  the  factory 
and  placed  in  tanks  of  clear,  cold  water,  in 
which  they  must  remain  for  forty-eight  hours. 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  they  are  thoroughly 
washed  in  running  cold  water,  and  are  again 
put  into  the  tanks,  where  they  are  kept  for 
another  forty-eight  hours. 

The  next  step  is  one  of  the  most  particular 
in  the  entire  process.  The  skins  are  removed 
from  the  clear  water  into  tanks  of  concrete, 
sunk  in  the  floor  of  the  factory,  which  are 
filled  with  a  mixture  of  water  and  dead  sifted 
lime.  Everv  fortv-eight  hours  thev  are  taken 
out  and  well  swilled  with  a  similar  mixture ; 
then  immediately  replaced  in  the  tanks.  The 
length  of  time  skins  should  be  kept  in  this 
lime  bath  depends  upon  their  character  and 
origin.  The  effect  of  the  lime  on  the  skin  is 
to  render  it  very  easy  to  scrape  off  the  hair. 
According  to  the  regions  from  which  they 
come,  skins  remain  in  the  bath  for  from  ten 
to  twentv-five  days.    This  lime  treatment  is 


86  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

the  most  crucial  point  in  the  dressing  of  kid 
skins,  for  it  is  only  after  long  years  of  experi- 
ence that  a  master  dresser  knows  exactly  how 
long  it  takes  to  render — let  us  say,  for 
instance — an  Auvergne  skin  "unhairable."  If 
the  skins  are  left  even  twenty-four  hours  too 
long  in  the  lime  mixture,  they  are  so  damaged 
as  to  be  useless  for  manufacturing  into  high 
grade  gloves. 

When  it  is  judged  that  the  skins  have 
remained  long  enough  in  the  lime  bath,  they 
are  taken  out  and  then  energetically  washed 
in  clear,  running  water ;  after  which  they  are 
passed  along  to  another  set  of  men  who  place 
them,  one  by  one,  flat,  over  a  smooth,  rounded 
block  of  wood,  and  with  a  blunt,  two-handled, 
almost  scythe-shaped  knife,  proceed  to  scrape 
the  hair  and  fat  off  the  surface  of  the  skins. 
The  "unhairing"  completed,  the  skins,  still 
wet  and  mussy,  are  passed  on  to  women 
workers  who  trim  the  edges — to  which  ad- 
heres superfluous  fat — with  large  hand 
shears. 

The  next  process  is  to  rid  the  skins  of  the 
lime  with  which  thev  have  been  charged. 
Therefore,  scraped  and  trimmed,  they  are  sub- 
merged in  a  large,  wooden  vat,  containing  hot 
water  mixed  with  an  entirely  new  product, 
invented  bv  Monsieur  Louis  Pevrache.    This 

*  * 

product  is  called  "peroly"  and  is  an  enemy  to 
lime.  When  the  skins  are  lifted  out  of  this 
solution  they  are  found  to  be  quite  devoid  of 
all  traces  of  the  latter. 

Following  the  "peroly  bath,?,  the  skins  are 
placed  in  another  large  tub  full  of  hot  water, 
above  which  passes  a  crank  connected  with  an 
electric  motor,  from  which  crank  four  shafts 


Annonay  and  Its  Industry  87 

terminating  in  wooden  "stampers"  hang  down 
into  the  tub.  The  tub  also  revolves  on  a 
spindle  connected  with  the  motor.  The  object 
of  this  bath  is  to  free  the  skins  of  every  ves- 
tige of  the  peroly;  and  the  effect  of  the  hot 
water  is  to  open  the  pores  in  the  skins  and 
render  them  more  easily  deprived  of  the  ani- 
mal matter  thev  contain. 

The  skins  have  now  been  well  washed  and 
thoroughly  cleaned.  They  appear  almost 
transparent.  But  the  series  of  "baths"  is  not 
over.  However,  before  another  is  attempted, 
the  skins  are  laid  again  across  the  wooden 
blocks  and  as  much  as  possible  of  the  fatty 
substance  which  still  adheres  to  them  is 
scraped  off  with  the  blunt  knives  already 
described.  In  this  instance,  as  previously, 
the  skins  are  scraped  on  the  sides  from  which 
the  hair  was  removed  in  the  first  place,  known 
as  the  "fleur"  side  of  the  skin.  Then  conies 
the  bran  bath.  In  a  mixture  of  luke  warm 
water  and  bran  they  are  gently  stirred 
around  by  means  of  long,  wooden  props 
fitted  with  ferules  of  india-rubber.  Once 
more  the  skins  are  lifted  out  and  laid  on  the 
blocks ;  and  this  time  the  scraping  is  done  on 
the  "flesh"  or  inside.  Another  bran  bath 
follows,  and  now  the  skins  require  careful 
watching.  When  the  master  dresser  judges 
that  they  have  stayed  long  enough  in  this 
second  bran  solution,  they  are  again,  one  by 
one,  laid  over  the  blocks,  when  all  the  remains 
of  the  bran  are  scraped  off. 

Now  the  skins  are  put  into  a  large,  closed 
receptacle,  containing  a  mixture  of  the  yel- 
lows of  eggs,  meal  and  alum.  This  mixture 
"feeds"  the  skins;  it  is  a  kind  of  "wrinkled 


88  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

paste"  in  the  beautifying  process.  It  fills  up 
the  pores  which  have  been  impoverished 
through  the  loss  of  their  natural  fat  and  oil. 
The  next  day,  the  skins  are  taken  out  of  this 
bath,  and  are  strung  up  in  a  large  room 
through  which  flows  a  current  of  dry,  heated 
air.  In  stringing  up  the  skins  here,  care 
always  is  taken  to  fold  them  with  the  "fleur" 
surface  inside.  After  they  have  become 
thoroughly  dried,  they  are  tied  up  into 
packets  of  six  dozen  each,  and  left  in  a  dry, 
normal  atmosphere  for  fifteen  days,  or  even 
a  month.  By  this  time  the  skins  are  quite 
hard  and  brittle. 

To  take  out  the  stiffness,  the  skins  now 
are  dipped  into  clear,  cold  water  for  a  few 
minutes.  They  are  left  in  the  air  until  the 
following  day,  when  they  are  passed  through 
a  set  of  rollers  which  help  to  make  them 
supple;  after  which  they  are  sent  imme- 
diately to  the  "palisson."  This  process  rein- 
vigor  ates  the  dressed  skins,  rendering  them 
plastic  and  easily  stretched.  By  the  old- 
fashioned  method,  it  is  performed  by  hand. 
The  "palisson"  consists,  as  formerly,  of  a 
large,  rounded,  blunted  steel  blade,  pointing 
upwards,  and  fastened  into  a  wooden  block, 
over  which  the  skin  is  drawn  backwards  and 
forwards,  with  its  flesh  side  on  the  blade. 
After  this  operation,  the  skin  is  rubbed  over 
another  blade,  similarly  shaped,  but  slightly 
sharpened.  By  means  of  this,  the  remainder 
of  the  flesh  is  cut  away  from  the  surface  of 
the  skin,  thus  giving  it  the  softness  and  white- 
ness which,  by  this  time,  it  will  have  acquired. 

In  these  days,  the  "palisson"  process  is 
also  performed  by  girls  at  revolving, wheels 


Annonay  and  Its  Industry  89 

run  by  a  motor,  and  the  results  obtained  com- 
pare very  well  indeed  with  the  old-fashioned 
method  of  palisson  by  hand. 

The  skins  are  now  completely  dressed. 
Lastly,  they  are  sent  to  the  classing  room  to 
be  examined  by  experts  and  sorted  according 
to  their  qualities.  They  are  then  forwarded 
to  the  manufacturers  at  Grenoble. 

In  the  United  States  kid  gloves  manu- 
factured out  of  skins  from  all  over  Europe, 
and  even  from  northern  Africa  and  China,  are 
to  be  found  on  the  counters  of  the  glove  shops. 
But  the  best  kidskins  come  from  France,  and 
are  invariably  dressed  in  Annonay  and  manu- 
factured into  gloves  at  Grenoble.  The 
American,  then,  who  buys  gloves  of  French 
origin,  Annonay  dressed,  and  made  in  Gre- 
noble, may  natter  himself  that  he  is  enjoying 
perfection  itself  in  hand-wear. 


Chapter  IX. 
THE  GLOVES  WE  BUY 

"There's  nothing  like  leather.  Leather  is  a  product  of 
Nature.  Take  a  piece  of  leather  and  observe  the  way  the 
fibres  are  knit  together.  It  is  Nature's  work.  It  is  so  won- 
derful that  man  cannot  hope  to  reproduce  it.  He  cannot 
even  re-create  it.  Boil  a  piece  of  hide  or  skin.  It  will  turn  to 
gelatine.  No  power  known  to  man  can  turn  that  gelatine  back 
into  leather.  Shred  it.  No  machine  can  reweave  the  fibres 
into  their  former  wonderful  fabric.  Take  all  the  chemicals 
which  go  to  make  up  a  piece  of  leather,  and  mix  them  in  all 
the  ways  that  can  be  imagined,  and  man  cannot  make  a  single 
inch  of  leather.  Synthetic  leather  seems  farther  away  than 
the  synthetic  diamond." 

THE  person  who  enters  a  glove  shop  of 
reputation — or  the  glove  department  of 
any  high  class  store — to  buy  gloves,  probabty 
has  a  very  limited  notion  of  the  variety  of 
fabrics  and  workmanship  represented  by  the 
goods  before  him.  To  this  single  line  of  mer- 
chandise nearly  every  country  in  the  world 
contributes  to-day;  not  merely  in  the  his- 
torical sense,  in  which  we  have  watched  the 
glove  evolve  through  the  centuries,  but  also 
in  point  of  materials  and  processes  actually 
used.  The  glove  counter,  little  as  we  may 
appreciate  it,  brings  together  the  riches  and 
skill  of  the  Orient,  of  Africa,  of  Europe,  and 
of  the  Western  World.  A  glance  at  some  of 
the  names,  familiar  to  us  all,  as  cape  and 
mocha,  immediately  suggests  their  origin  in 
far  distant  countries. 

And  yet,  perhaps  for  economy  of  expres- 
sion— if  not  from  positive  ignorance — the 
general  public  divides  all  leather  dress  gloves 
into  just  two  classes,  "dressed  kid"  and  "un- 
dressed kid.''  Everything  with  the  grain 
surface,  or  smooth  finish,  is  designated  by 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  91  • 

the  former  term;  the  latter  is  popularly 
applied  to  gloves  with  the  grain  surface 
removed,  or  finished  on  the  flesh  side  of  the 
skin.  To  the  initiated,  however,  gloves  are 
distinguished  primarily  by  the  different  kinds 
of  leather  of  which  thev  are  made :  and,  still 

*/  7  7 

further,  by  the  great  variety  of  qualities 
which  each  kind  of  leather  is  capable  of 
exhibiting. 

In  the  glove  trade  men  talk  of  "cape," 
"suede,"  "doeskin,"  "lambskin,"  "kid" — nor 
is  the  meaning  of  each  of  these  nearly  so 
obvious,  nor  so  simple,  as  would  casually 
appear.  If,  in  every  case,  the  name  were 
properly  applied  to  skins  which  came  from  a 
distinct  type  of  animal,  grown  in  one  partic- 
ular district,  whose  hide  was  tanned  into 
leather  by  its  own  peculiar  process,  then  the 
quality  and  character  of  each  kind  of  leather 
would  be  practically  uniform.  But  such  is  far 
from  being  the  fact.  When  first  used,  no 
doubt,  each  of  these  terms  meant  a  certain, 
well-defined  thing.  Now,  however,  in  the 
evolution  of  processes  of  production,  the 
meaning  has  been  enlarged;  and  virtually 
any  of  these  designations  covers  a  much 
wider  scope,  even  departing  radically,  in 
many  instances,  from  its  original  application. 

Let  us  take,  for  example,  the  "cape"  glove. 
In  the  first  place  this  name  was  used  to  dis- 
tinguish a  glove  made  of  skins  from  the  Cape 
district  of  South  Africa.  These  skins  were 
large  spread,  heavy,  rather  tight  grained,  and 
are  still  used  in  the  production  of  genuine 
cape  gloves.  But  the  soft,  pliable,  widely- 
worn  glove,  in  various  weights,  now  commer- 
cially known  as  cape,  is  manufactured  from 


92  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 


sheep  and  lamb  skins  grown  in  many  lands, 
and  tanned  and  dressed  by  the  method  called 
"napa  dipped."  What  was  once  the  name 
for  a  glove  made  from  one  type  of  skins  is 
now  the  designation  for  hand-wear  made 
from  leather  of  a  particular  tannage,  for 
which  skins  of  many  types,  grown  in  many 
lands,  are  used. 

Probably  the  best  types  of  these  skins 
come  from  Russia  to-day — the  district  fur- 
nishing the  most  desirable  qualities  being  the 
province  of  Kasan  and  the  nearby  territory 
of  the  Volga  River.  Others  of  varying  degrees 
of  merit  emanate  from  Spain,  as  well  as  from 
the  European  Orient — Turkey,  Roumania, 
Bulgaria,  Montenegro  and  Servia;  and,  to  a 
small  extent,  from  some  other  vicinities.  All 
these  are  called  Oriental  skins.  Those  with 
the  finest  grades  of  wool,  oddly  enough,  are 
inferior,  usually,  to  those  which  have  hairy, 
wirv  wool — as  far  as  their  desirabilitv  for 
glove  leather  is  concerned.  Evidently,  then, 
the  place  of  origin,  the  character  of  the  pelt, 
and  the  method  of  its  tannage,  all  have 
important  bearing  on  the  quality  of  the 
cape  glove. 

But  if  the  cape  is  made  from  lamb  skin, 
what,  then,  is  the  distinguishing  feature 
between  the  lamb  glove  and  the  cape  glove? 
How  are  we  to  tell  them  apart?  Up  to  that 
stage  in  tannage  referred  to  as  "in  the 
white,"  these  two  leathers  are  practically  the 
the  same — except  that  the  skins  which  are 
to  go  into  the  capes  are  heavier  and  larger. 
It  is  in  the  finishing  and  coloring  processes 
that  the  distinction  occurs.  The  dressing 
and  coloring — which,  in  fact,  is  a  part  of  the 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  93 

tannage  of  the  capes  and  completes  this 
process — is  done  by  the  "drum"  or  "dipped" 
method.  This  colors  the  skin  all  the  way 
through;  whereas,  leather  for  the  so-called 
lamb  glove  has  the  color  brushed  on  the 
grain  surface  only,  leaving  the  flesh  side  of 
the  leather,  which  is  to  be  the  inside  of  the 
glove,  in  the  white. 

Thus,  the  visible  marks  of  difference 
between  the  cape  glove  and  the  lamb  glove, 
so-named,  are  in  the  weight  of  the  stock,  and 
in  the  fact  that  the  cape,  when  colored,  is 
d3red  through  the  skin,  instead  of  merely  on 
the  grain  surface. 

German  tanners  have  been  the  largest 
converters  of  lamb  and  sheep  skins  into  cape 
leather  by  the  napa  tannage,  which  is  an 
alum  process.  And  it  is  the  German  stock 
which,  until  recently,  was  chiefly  used  in  the 
American-made  cape  gloves.  In  the  year 
1913,  however,  several  American  tanners 
devised  a  chrome  cape  tannage,  which 
appears  to  be  even  superior  to  the  napa 
process,  and  possesses  the  added  merit  that 
it  may  be  cleansed  in  water  free  of  alkali  of 
any  temperature  up  to  212°  Fahrenheit.  It  is 
this  leather — really  an  American  discovery — 
which  goes  into  the  gloves  popularly  known 
as  washable  capes.  Since  the  outbreak  of 
the  European  War,  in  1914,  chrome  tanning 
has  been  further  improved  in  this  country; 
and  as  real  Cape  of  Good  Hope  leather  is 
used,  the  United  States  is  producing  to-da}T 
the  best  cape  gloves  ever  known,  and  the 
German  tanned  napa  cape  is  fast  being 
discarded. 

While  mocha  is  made  from  skins  grown  in 


94  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

far  distant  lands,  mocha  gloves  are  distinctly 
of  American  origin.  With  the  march  of  civili- 
zation westward  in  the  United  States,  and  the 
disappearance  of  the  antelope  from  the 
western  plains  of  North  America  some  thirty- 
five  years  ago,  a  skin  was  sought  by  glove 
manufacturers  in  this  country  to  take  the 
place  of  the  antelope,  which  was  used  in  mak- 
ing a  glove  in  those  days  known  as  doeskin. 
After  patient  search,  and  much  experiment- 
ing with  various  species  of  skins  and  different 
tanning  processes,  a  tannage  was  perfected 
for  the  skin  of  the  Arabian  hair  sheep  which 
produced  the  strong,  but  soft,  velvety  finished 
mocha. 

The  skin  derives  its  name,  no  doubt,  from 
Mocha,  a  seaport  town  of  Arabia  on  the  Ked 
Sea,  whence,  it  is  said,  these  skins  were  first 
brought.  The  Mocha  hair  sheep  is  a  distinct 
type,  and  is  not  a  species  resulting  from  cross 
breeding  between  the  Mocha  goat  and  a  kind 
of  wool  sheep,  as  often  has  been  stated. 
While  the  Mocha  goat  and  the  Mocha  sheep 
herd  together,  they  do  not  interbreed.  The 
mocha  market  of  the  world  is  Aden,  at  the 
southern  end  of  Arabia.  The  buyers  here 
keep  native  collectors  at  the  chief  points  to 
which  skins  are  conveyed  by  caravans.  These 
points  are  Moka,  Berbera,  Bulhar,  Djibouti 
and  Zevlah  in  Africa,  and  Hodeidah  in 
Arabia.  The  skins  are  sorted  and  graded 
according  to  size,  weight  and  condition ;  then 
they  are  baled,  about  three  hundred  in  a  lot. 
First,  however,  they  are  sun-dried,  and  are 
treated  with  naphthaline  to  protect  them 
from  damage  by  worms. 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  95 

In  the  vernacular  of  the  trade,  these  skins 
are  referred  to  as  white-heads,  black-heads 
and  red-heads.  They  are  thus  classified  in 
reference  to  the  color  of  the  hair  on  the  heads 
of  the  animals,  the  bodies  being  black  and 
white,  red  and  white,  or  all  white.  However, 
as  the  head  colors  denote  a  type  of  skin  with 
more  or  less  well  denned  characteristics, 
these  designations  are  more  scientific  than 
would  appear.  For  glove  leather  the  black- 
heads rank  first  in  quality,  the  white-heads 
second,  and  the  red-heads  third.  The  black- 
head type,  which  comes  principally  from  the 
African  districts  mentioned,  is  more  dis- 
tinctly a  hair  skin  than  the  other  two  types, 
and  has  a  tighter,  firmer  texture.  With  the 
white-heads,  which  are  chiefly  Arabian  skins, 
the  hair  is  of  a  more  woolly  character  and 
the  fibre  of  the  skin  is  looser.  This  last  is 
also  true  of  the  red-heads,  in  which  these  ele- 
ments are  even  more  pronounced.  Certain 
other  kinds  of  sheep  skins — notably  those 
found  in  the  district  between  Cairo  and 
Khartum,  known  as  "Sudans" — have  been 
adapted  for  the  manufacture  of  mocha  leather. 
These  yield  a  much  larger  spread,  coarser 
fibre  skin  than  the  mocha  hair  sheep;  but 
when  tanned  by  the  mocha  process,  sudans 
sufficiently  resemble  the  mocha  to  be  sold  for 
that  article — except  to  the  expert. 

No  other  glove  leather  passes  through  so 
many  different  processes  in  tanning  and 
dressing  as  does  the  mocha.  This  is  chiefly 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  skins,  at  their  source, 
are  handled  by  the  natives  in  a  crude  sort  of 
way,  and  under  the  crusted,  sun-dried  surface 
there  are  often  manv  defects  which  do  not 


96  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

show  until  the  skin  is  subjected  to  the  tan- 
ning process.  Mocha  skins  invariably  are 
scratched,  scarred  and  imperfect  on  the  grain 
surface ;  for  this  reason  the  grain  is  removed. 
At  the  same  time,  as  much  of  the  grain 
strength  as  possible  must  be  preserved  while 
eliminating  the  imperfections. 

This  method,  which  is  called  "friezing," 
distinguishes  the  mocha  from  the  suede  glove. 
Though  in  appearance,  when  finished,  they 
are  very  similar,  mocha  and  suede  actually 
are  extremely  different  in  character.  In  the 
friezed  mocha,  the  outer  or  wearing  surface 
of  the  glove,  which  receives  the  finish,  is  on 
the  grain  and  not  on  the  flesh  side  of  the 
leather.  Friezing  merely  removes  the  grain 
to  take  the  finish,  thus  leaving  much  of  the 
strength  of  the  outer  skin — while  in  suede  or 
other  "undressed"  finishes,  this  strength  is 
entirety  lacking. 

The  name  suede  is  derived  purely  from 
the  sueding  process,  and  not  from  the  kind 
of  leather  used.  Skins  with  perfect  grain 
usually  are  finished  on  the  grain  surface  side 
and  are  called  glace.  But  many  with  imper- 
fect grain  are  finished  on  the  flesh  side  of  the 
skin,  by  the  sueding  process.  Suede,  then,  is 
exactly  the  reverse  of  mocha,  in  that  what 
was  the  inside  of  the  skin  becomes  the  out- 
side of  the  glove.  Suede  leather,  obviously,  is 
inferior  in  strength,  if  not  in  appearance,  to 
the  same  types  of  skins  dressed  on  the  grain 
side.  It  has  by  no  means  the  durability  of 
mocha — though  a  high-grade  suede  strikingly 
resembles  mocha. 

Although  "chamois"  is  not  chamois,  it  is 
by  no  means  a  sham.    And  that  the  "doeskin" 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  97 

is  most  likely  a  eweskin  is  nothing  to  its 
discredit.  The  chamois  of  commerce  is  not 
the  skin  of  the  Switzerland  animal  known  by 
that  name,  nor  is  the  doeskin  of  to-dav  the 
skin  of  the  one-time  antelope.  Both  are 
sheep  skins,  or  parts  of  sheep  skins,  tanned 
and  dressed  as  chamois  and  doeskins.  Col- 
lectors and  dealers  in  sheep  skins  at  their 
source,  in  some  districts  find  it  necessary,  or 
advantageous,  to  split  the  skins  edgewise, 
making  two  thinner  skins.  The  upper  part, 
with  the  grain  surface,  is  termed  a  "skiver," 
and  the  lower  section  a  "flesher."  It  is  from 
these  flesher  sheepskins  that  the  leathers 
commerciallv  known  as  chamois  and  doeskin 
are  produced. 

The  tanning  processes  of  chamois  are 
many,  the  most  common  being  the  oil  tan- 
nage, alum  and  chrome.  The  finest  selections 
of  fleshers,  split  from  sheepskins  of  the 
Scotch  mountains,  and  from  France,  Spain 
and  Turkey,  are  oil  tanned  and  are  used  for 
the  production  of  the  washable  chamois  glove. 
Another,  and  comparatively  recent,  tannage 
of  fleshers,  is  the  formaldehyde  process  which 
supplies  the  leather  commercially  known  as 
doeskin.  Properly  tanned  for  that  purpose, 
these  leathers  will  wash  perfectly  under  the 
prescribed  rules  for  washing.  Trade  in  these 
gloves,  however,  has  suffered  from  intense 
competition  which  has  forced  a  cheap,  quicker 
tannage,  and  one  which  will  preserve  the 
largest  possible  spread  to  the  skin.  And  some- 
times the  washing  quality  has  been  sacrificed 
to  secure  a  finer  "face"  to  the  leather.  Tan- 
nages even  are  used  which  render  the  leather 
not    washable    but    actually    impervious    to 


98  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

water — simply  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasing 
appearance  of  the  skin  when  new.  These 
things,  coupled  with  the  wearer's  careless 
disregard  of  proper  methods  of  washing,  have 
cast  some  measure  of  discredit  upon  what 
are  really  meritorious  gloves. 

But,  as  regards  the  really  reputable 
chamois  glove  of  to-day!  In  the  first  place, 
how  absurd  to  the  initiated  is  the  question, 
so  often  asked  by  the  customer,  "Is  this 
genuine  chamois?"  Think  of  it!  An  animal 
grown  in  the  Swiss  Alps,  and,  like  the  Ameri- 
can buffalo,  now  almost  extinct,  is  supposed 
by  many  people  to  produce  chamois  gloves 
for  the  whole,  civilized  world!  As  we  have 
seen,  "genuine  chamois"  is  sheep  or  lamb 
skin,  tanned  by  a  simple  process  similar  to 
that  used  on  the  real  chamois,  many,  many 
years  ago.  Sheep  skins  give  the  best  results ; 
but  lamb  skins  are  used  to  a  limited  extent. 
The  latter  make  finer  gloves,  but  not  so 
durable,  as  these  skins  scarcely  can  stand 
the  hard  usage  this  leather  requires  in 
preparation. 

The  entire  tanning  process  of  chamois 
leather  calls  for  absolutely  nothing  but  fish 
oil.  No  dye,  no  acid,  no  alkali  goes  into  this 
leather,  and  thus  its  washing  qualities  are 
unquestioned.  After  the  skins  have  remained 
in  the  vats  in  this  oil  a  sufficient  length  of 
time — a  month  or  more,  as  is  determined  by 
experts — they  are  wrung  out  and  hung  up 
in  drying  rooms,  without  ventilation,  and  a 
few  fagots  of  wood  kept  burning.  When 
thoroughly  dry  they  have  what  is  known  as 
the  "natural"  or  yellow  color,  and  no  two 
tannings  come  out  alike  in  shade.    When  a 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  99 

cream  color,  or  white,  is  desired,  another 
process  follows.  An  expert  goes  through  the 
skins,  selecting  those  that  have  body  and 
strength  enough  to  stand  the  severe  washing 
they  are  to  get.  These  skins  are  put  into 
vats  or  tubs  of  clear  water  and  washed 
"French  fashion" — which  means,  beaten  with 
a  club — and  are  then  wrung  out  again  and 
laid  on  the  grass  in  the  sun  to  bleach. 

If  cream  color  is  wanted,  a  day  or  two  on 
the  grass  in  the  sun  will  suffice.  But  if  white 
is  desired — and  it  mostly  is  preferred — a 
week  or  ten  days  is  required  for  this  bleach- 
ing, depending,  of  course,  on  the  weather. 
Good,  sunshiny  weather  means  good,  white 
chamois  leather;  while  a  long  spell  of  dull, 
cloudy  weather  means  a  poor  shade  of  white, 
with  plenty  of  white  chalk  rubbed  into  the 
skins  to  make  them  appear  whiter.  Irre- 
spective of  the  sun,  they  will  all  get  some 
chalk,  however.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
these  skins  are  supposed  to  imbibe  a  great 
deal  of  nourishment  from  the  grass  as  they 
lie  exposed  to  the  sunlight.  White  chamois 
gloves,  which  have  been  put  away  for  some 
time  in  boxes,  will  begin  to  turn  back  to  a 
dull  yellow;  but  if  placed  in  the  light,  in  a 
store  or  in  a  window,  they  will  turn  white 
again. 

After  the  yellowing  or  bleaching  process, 
the  chamois  skins — natural,  cream  or  white — 
have  only  to  go  to  the  doler  to  be  ready  for 
the  cutter's  knife.  At  the  best,  this  glove  is 
rather  rough  looking,  but  it  is  simple  and 
artistic,  and  especially  in  keeping  with  the 
travelling  or  sport  costume.  Also,  at  the 
end  of  the  journey,  or  after  the  out-of-door 


100  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

game,  such  a  glove  may  be  washed  as  easily 
and  successfully  as  a  pocket-handkerchief. 
So,  its  popularity  is  enduring. 

Already  we  are  somewhat  familiar  with 
kid  gloves,  from  our  detailed  study  of  the 
great  industry  of  Grenoble,  including  the 
dressers'  works  at  Annonay.  Nearly  all  the 
kid  skins  used  in  glove-making  are  procured 
in  Europe,  and  the  production  really  is 
limited  to  a  very  few  countries.  As  we  have 
seen,  France  leads.  Next  comes  Italy,  then 
Germany,  Austria,  and — up  to  the  disaster 
of  August,  1914 — Belgium.  Several  months 
are  consumed,  and  a  dozen  or  more  processes 
are  necessary,  before  kid  skins  are  in  the 
market  as  glove  leather.  These  operations 
have  been  fully  described  in  the  chapter 
immediately  preceding.  When  the  finished 
skins  appear  "in  the  white"  they  are  ready 
for  the  dyer. 

An  expert  goes  through  the  skins  and 
assorts  them  for  the  different  colors  for 
which  they  are  best  adapted.  For  instance, 
some  skins  will  make  good  tan  shades,  but 
would  not  make  greys — and  so  on,  through 
the  entire  list  of  colors.  As  all  skins  take  the 
black  dye  well,  it  follows  that  the  last  sort- 
ings go  into  black.  Black  and  white  are  the 
easiest  of  all  to  dye;  and  perfect  skins,  dyed 
white,  show  to  the  best  advantage  of  any — 
while  grey  is  a  color  which  is  a  bete  noir  to 
all  manufacturers  and  dyers.  Hundreds  of 
dollars  have  been  literally  thrown  away  in 
an  attempt  to  produce  some  particular  shade. 
Suede  leather  yields  more  readily  and  accu- 
rately to  the  dyer's  art  than  glace,  and 
furnishes  a  greater  variety  of  shades.    For 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  101 

this  reason,  and  because  of  their  fine,  velvety 
surface,  they  are  considered  by  many  the 
most  beautiful  of  all  gloves;  and  by  the 
fastidious  are  preferred  for  opera  and  even- 
ing wear. 

Kid  skins  produced  in  other  countries 
than  France  all  have  about  the  same  charac- 
teristics. But  French  Nationals  remain 
invariably  the  best.  It  may  be  added  that 
kids  raised  in  low,  flat  countries,  like  Bel- 
gium, while  presenting  a  fine  appearance, 
never  have  the  strength  of  the  highland 
skins. 

Lambskins,  like  kid,  are  nearly  all  found 
in  Europe,  but  they  cover  a  much  wider 
range  of  territory.  Like  kid  skins,  they  are 
carefully  nurtured  and  guarded  against  im- 
perfections. They  are  grown  in  Italy,  Sicily, 
Sardinia,  Corsica,  Spain,  France,  Germany, 
Austria,  Russia  and  the  Balkan  States,  the 
product  of  the  latter  being  known — like  the 
sheepskins  for  "cape"  purposes — as  "Oriental 
leather."  For  fine  lambskin  gloves  the  best 
leather  of  all  comes  from  northern  Italy,  and 
is  termed,  commercially,  "Tuscany  skins"; 
these  rival  kid  skins  for  fine  grain  and 
durability.  Next  in  value  comes  the  fine 
French  lamb  known  as  "Rigord."  Then  fol- 
low the  Spanish  skins.  The  Russian  (Kasan) 
and  Oriental  skins  are  of  equal  value  with 
some  of  the  above  named,  many  of  them  run- 
ning very  fine  in  grain  and  producing  remark- 
ably durable  gloves.  As  they  tend  to  be 
heavier  in  weight,  however,  the  larger  part 
of  this  class  of  lambskins  finds  its  way  into 
men's  gloves.  It  is  said  that  fully  80%  of 
Oriental  leather  goes  to  German  and  English 


102  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

tanneries,  which  prepare  more  especially 
materials  for  the  heavier  grades  of  gloves. 

In  the  tanning  or  dressing  of  lambskins, 
the  processes  are  practically  the  same  as  in 
the  preparation  of  kid  and  goat  skins  for  the 
glove  manufacturer.  Lambskins  also  are 
subjected  to  the  same  examination  by  experts 
to  determine  the  colors  they  will  take  best. 
In  fact,  the  onlv  real  difference  between  fine 
kid  and  fine  lamb  gloves  is  that  the  former  is 
of  a  more  delicate,  yet  firmer,  grain,  and  pro- 
duces a  better  wearing  article  with  more 
intrinsic  value. 

Nearly  all  colors,  applied  in  dyeing  both 
kid  and  lamb  gloves,  are  put  on  with  a  brush. 
The  skins  are  laid  on  marble  slabs,  and  the 
color  brushed  on,  a  sufficient  number  of  coats 
being  given  to  produce  the  desired  shade  and 
to  fix  it  thoroughly  and  evenly.  This  explains 
why  colored  gloves  remain  white  on  the 
inside,  as  the  dyes  do  not  strike  through, 
Some  of  the  light,  or  extremely  delicate  tints, 
however — as  pink,  cream,  azure,  lilac — will 
not  take  the  color  with  brushing.  In  such 
cases,  the  skin  must  be  immersed  in  the  dye, 
or  "dipped";  and  then  the  color  shows,  of 
course,  on  both  exterior  and  interior. 

After  the  dyer's  work  is  done,  and  the 
skins  would  appear  to  a  novice  ready  for  the 
cutter,  still  another  process  has  to  be  gone 
through,  requiring  an  entirely  different  kind 
of  skilled  labor.  This  is  the  process  of 
"doling" — mentioned  a  few  paragraphs  back, 
in  connection  with  chamois — and  it  consists 
in  reducing  each  skin  to  a  uniform  thickness 
throughout,  as  nearly  as  possible.  The  doler 
lays  the  skin  on  a  marble  slab  and  with  a 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  103 

broad,  flat  knife,  sharp  as  a  razor,  goes  over 
the  inner  surface,  planing  or  doling  off  the 
uneven  places.  A  thoroughly  good  cutter 
always  doles  his  own  skins.  Some  manu- 
facturers, however,  employ  dolers  for  this 
purpose  exclusively. 

Such  are  the  leading  leathers  used  in  the 
making  of  fine  gloves.  Developments  in  tan- 
ning have  also  brought  into  use  the  skins  of 
many  animals  ordinarily  considered  of  no 
value  to  the  glove  trade.  While  deer,  sheep, 
kid  and  calf  skins  in  former  days  were  used 
exclusively,  in  our  times  the  skins  of  dogs, 
foxes,  bears,  the  cow,  the  colt,  the  kangaroo 
— and  almost  every  hair  animal — are  em- 
ployed to  some  extent.  Most  of  these,  how- 
ever, could  never  pass  for  fine  products,  even 
among  the  uninitiated — with  the  possible 
exception  of  colt;  and  they  are  used  only  by 
inferiors  in  the  trade,  with  whom  the  pres- 
ent discussion  of  glove-making  has  nothing 
to  do.  These  coarse  leathers  are  honest 
enough,  however,  in  the  hands  of  Esquimaux, 
backwoodsmen,  and  people  who  are  obliged 
to  provide  out  of  the  materials  within  reach 
warm  coverings  for  the  hands.  But,  in  such 
cases,  the  fur  is  usually  left  on  the  hide, 
deceiving  no  one. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  actual  turning 
of  the  leather  into  gloves.  Since  Xavier 
Jouvin's  invention,  the  glove  cutter  has  not 
actually  cut  out  gloves.  The  old  method  of 
tracing  the  pattern  and  following  it  with 
the  scissors  has  completely  vanished.  But 
the  glove  cutter,  still  so-called,  exercises  a 
great  deal  of  care  and  skill  in  cutting  oblong- 
shaped  pieces   of  leather  which  will  make 


104  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

exactly  the  size  lie  stamps  on  them  when, 
later,  the  gloves  are  cut  out  by  means  of  steel 
dies.  In  doing  this,  the  cutter  uses  paste- 
board patterns,  to  be  sure;  but  these  are 
simply  guides  to  enable  him  to  put  exactly  the 
right  amount  of  leather  into  each  piece  that 
he  cuts,  in  order  to  produce  the  size  desired. 
To  the  cutter  each  skin  he  takes  up  becomes 
a  new  problem.  As  no  two  faces  are  alike,  so 
also  no  two  skins  are  alike — not  even  those 
of  the  same  class. 

The  cutter  first  stretches  the  skin  care- 
fully to  ascertain  or  measure  its  elasticity. 
Then  he  applies  his  pattern  to  see  how  he 
can  get  the  best  results  quantitatively.  In 
other  words,  a  cutter  must  exercise  the 
utmost  ingenuity  to  get  as  many  gloves  as 
possible  out  of  the  skins  he  is  working  on, 
and  not  let  any  of  the  leather  go  to  waste. 
In  man}*  glove  factories,  the  foreman  "taxes" 
the  skins  as  they  are  given  out  to  the  cutters ; 
that  is,  he  fixes  the  number  of  pairs  of  gloves 
the  cutter  must  turn  out  for  a  certain  quan- 
tity of  skins.  After  the  cutter  has  stretched, 
pulled,  measured,  and  finally  cut  out  his 
oblong  piece  of  leather,  he  marks  the  size  on 
it  and  lays  it  aside  for  the  calibres,  which 
will  be  shown  in  operation  later  on. 

The  skilled  cutter's  work  is  done,  and  the 
pieces  of  leather  he  has  cut  are  called  tranks. 
The  cutter  must  know,  of  course,  whether  the 
tranks  he  is  producing  are  for  over-seam, 
pique  or  prick-seam  gloves,  as  each  requires 
a  different  pattern.  The  fragments  of  leather 
left  from  the  skins  after  the  tranks  are  cut 
are  used  as  far  as  possible  for  cutting  hems, 
bindings,    fourchettes    and    "hearts,"    which 


The  Gloves  We  Buy  105 

latter  is  the  technical  name  for  the  little 
"stay"  at  the  bottom  of  the  wrist  opening. 
And  certainly  there  is  very  little  of  the  skin 
which  is  not  utilized  after  all  these  items  are 
subtracted.  One  would  hardly  realize  what  a 
jig-saw  puzzle,  and  in  how  many  intricately 
fitting  parts,  a  glove  actually  is,  until  he 
paused  to  examine  one  and  to  count  the  dif- 
ferent sections  which  must  be  shaped  and 
cut  out  to  go  into  its  making. 

Xext,  the  calibres  demand  out  attention. 
These  are  the  knives  which  really  cut  the 
tranks  into  the  shape  of  gloves  and  might, 
perhaps,  be  called  dies.  They  run,  of  course, 
in  sizes ;  and  the  process  might  be  likened  to 
the  old-fashioned  way  of  cutting  cakes  out 
of  dough  with  a  tin  cover,  except  that  in 
stamping  out  gloves  the  position  is  reversed. 
The  calibre  is  locked  into  a  heavy  machine 
with  the  sharp  steel  knife-edges  up,  and  the 
tranks  laid  on  top.  A  lever  is  pulled,  a  heavy- 
weight descends,  and  the  cut  gloves  are  then 
ready  to  sew. 

Calibres  are  bv  no  means  uniform.  That 
is  to  say,  all  manufacturers  do  not  use  the 
same  kind;  and  among  the  leading,  large 
manufacturers,  each  has  his  own  cut,  or  set 
of  calibres,  differing  from  all  others  in  some 
one  or  more  points.  For  example,  one  manu- 
facturer will  have  the  fingers  of  his  gloves 
made  longer  or  shorter  than  the  average; 
another  will  have  all  the  fingers  gussetted, 
while  another  will  have  no  gussets,  not  even 
at  the  gore  of  the  thumb.  Still  another  has 
a  cut  with  a  specially  short  little  finger — 
and  so  on.  This  results  in  a  very  wide 
variety  of  "cuts"  in  gloves,  and  each  manu- 


106  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

facturer  of  standard  make  is  satisfied,  and 
thinks  his  own  is  the  best.  It  is  the  dis- 
criminating woman  who  finds  out  what  cut 
or  make  fits  her  particular  hand,  and  then 
sticks  to  that  manufacturer's  gloves. 

Gloves  are  sewed  in  three  different  ways. 
First,  the  two  edges  are  brought  together 
and  sewed  over  and  over.  This  is  called  over- 
seam,  and  sometimes  round-seam,  and  is  the 
method  used  on  all  fine,  dressy  gloves.  A 
second  way  laps  the  edges  one  over  the  other 
and  sews  through  and  through.  This  is  lap- 
seam,  or  pique,  and  is  popular  on  gloves  for 
street  wear.  Third,  and  last,  the  seams  are 
brought  together,  the  same  as  in  overseam 
sewing,  but  are  sewed  through  and  through. 
This  method  is  called  prick-seam,  and  some- 
times sadlers  sewn,  and  is  used  only  on  heavy7 
leathers. 

The  first  machine  invented  for  glove  sew- 
ing was  put  on  the  market  about  forty-five 
years  ago  and  did  overseam  work  only.  It 
was  fought  by  many  of  the  best  manufac- 
turers who  continued  to  make  the  boast  of 
their  hand-sewn  gloves.  Time  has  overcome 
this  feeling,  and  the  invention  of  pique  and 
prick-seam  sewing  machines  has  done  away 
with  all  handsewing — with  the  exception  of 
a  few  sadlers  sewn,  made  in  England,  and 
their  quantity  so  small  as  to  be  negligible. 
Even  the  embroidery  on  the  backs  of  gloves 
to-dav  is  done  almost  entirelv  bv  machine. 
There  are  one  or  two  styles  still  shown  that 
are  sewn  by  hand,  called  tambour.  Tambour 
work  is  very  handsome  and  cannot  be  done 
except  by  hand — yet;  but  the  limit  of  ma- 
chines has  bv  no  means  been  reached. 


Chapter  X. 
GLOVES  OF  THE  HOUR 

AN  interesting  modern  development  in 
^  glove  making,  and  one  which  un- 
doubtedly has  come  to  stay,  is  the  vogue  of 
the  silk  glove  whose  popularity  has  grown  to 
surprising  proportions.  Oddly  enough,  the 
first  gloves  to  be  introduced  into  Europe  for 
women  in  the  thirteenth  century  were  made 
of  linen,  and  were  of  very  simple  design. 
These  may  be  regarded  as  the  ancestor  of  the 
chamoisette  and  cotton  doeskins  of  our  dav; 
while  the  knitted  silk,  or  "purled'1  hand  cover- 
ings, worn  by  the  early  clergy,  suggested 
perhaps  the  gloves  of  silk  fabric  so  widely  in 
favor  for  the  last  half  century.  Quaint  lace 
"mitts"  and  gloves  of  spider-webby  texture 
imparted  to  the  costumes  of  our  grand- 
mothers a  charming  femininity.  But  the 
practical  silk  glove  as  a  substitution  for  kid 
is  a  comparatively  recent  achievement  of 
manufacturers  who  are  trying  their  best  to 
meet  the  constantly  multiplying  new  demands 
of  modern  men  and  women. 

The  most  hasty  comparison  of  the  earliest 
fabric  gloves  with  those  produced  in  our  own 
times  cannot  fail  to  impress  one  with  the 
tremendous  strides  the  glove  art  has  taken 
since  it  became  a  really  modern  industry. 
The  silk  and  linen  gloves  of  mediaeval  days 
were  loose  and  almost  shapeless;  tlnw 
possessed  neither  fit  nor  individuality. 
Roughly  measured  to  clothe  the  hands  of  a 
king,  they  might  have  been  worn  almost 
equally  well  by  the  lowliest  of  his  subjects. 


108  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

They  were  bulky  and  awkward,  concealing, 
rather  than  delineating,  the  character  of  the 
hands  beneath. 

Gloves  of  leather  and  kid  were  first  to 
acquire  those  traits  of  individuality  which 
were  made  possible  by  Xavier  Jouvin's  inven- 
tion of  an  exact  system  of  measurements, 
adapted  to  virtually  every  size  and  type  of 
human  hand.  The  perfection  of  fabric  gloves, 
however,  lagged  behind.  Even  silk  gloves 
were  indifferently  made,  and  could  be  had  in 
only  a  very  limited  range  of  styles  and  sizes. 
As  for  cotton  gloves,  these  were  conspicuous 
for  their  ugliness  and  cheapness,  up  to  within 
a  very  few  years  ago.  And  yet,  to-day,  we 
have  velvety  chamoisette  and  imitation  doe- 
skins which,  upon  the  hand  of  the  wearer,  are 
so  deceptive  that  they  readily  are  mistaken 
for  the  soft-finished  leathers  from  which  they 
have  been  named.  These  fabric  gloves,  made 
of  white,  yellow  and  many  other  colored 
textiles,  woven  especially  for  this  purpose, 
are  supple,  snug  fitting,  and  possess  a  style 
of  their  own.  They  retain  their  shape  even 
with  repeated  washing,  and  they  wear  amaz- 
ingly well.  It  cannot  be  disputed  that  they 
fill  a  long  felt  need  in  both  the  masculine 
and  the  feminine  wardrobes. 

Particularlv  in  warm  weather  the  fabric 
glove,  or  the  silk  glove,  almost  puts  out  of 
business  the  leather  glove,  which  seems  heavy, 
overheating,  unsanitary,  and  entirely  out  of 
keeping  both  with  the  light  costume  and  the 
altered  mood  of  the  wearer.  As  summer 
approaches,  we  naturally  long  to  have  every- 
thing about  our  persons  fresh,  easily  re- 
newable, dainty,  light  and  cool  to  the  touch. 


Gloves  of  the  Hour  109 

Leather  and  kid  repell  us  for  ordinary  wear. 
Only  the  finest  and  thinnest  of  kid  dress 
gloves  find  a  favored  place  in  the  summer 
wardrobe ;  while  the  fabric  glove,  in  countless 
new  guises,  becomes  increasingly  popular 
with  every  successive  season.  Through  .June, 
July  and  August,  fabric  and  silk  are  worn 
almost  exclusively — and  if  the  period  be 
short,  during  these  weeks  at  least  the  wash- 
able glove  is  without  a  rival. 

Just  as  the  chamoisette,  or  cotton  doeskin, 
provides  an  acceptable  substitute  for  cape 
and  lambskins  for  general  wear,  so  the  silk 
glove — the  Italian  or  Milanaise — becomes 
the  dress  glove  for  summer  and  is  appro- 
priate for  all  except  the  most  formal  occa- 
sions. The  silk  glove,  indeed,  has  recently 
been  brought  to  a  very  high  state  of  perfec- 
tion through  the  growing  skill  of  textile 
experts  and  inventors,  and  by  the  application 
of  the  best  glove-cutting  and  sewing  methods ; 
the  latter,  which  have  worked  such  changes 
in  the  style  and  fit  of  kid  gloves,  have  done 
no  less,  proportionately,  for  the  elevating  of 
the  silk  glove.  The  soft,  delicate,  yet  firm 
Milanaise  silk  fabric  now  clothes  the  hands 
as  smoothly,  and  renders  their  shape  as 
comely  and  as  full  of  character,  as  the  kid 
glove  long  has  been  wont  to  do.  Indeed,  it 
disguises  the  hand  even  less,  and  is  a  real 
test  of  shapely  knuckles  and  tapering  finger 
tips.  Also,  the  glistening  silk  itself  is  pecu- 
liarly seductive,  at  the  same  time  that  it 
delights  the  wearer  with  its  luxurious  and 
cleanly  contact. 

While  kid  gloves  must  be  regarded  as  an 
art   whose    secrets    are   best   known   to   the 


110  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

French,  fabric,  and  particularly  silk,  gloves 
are  manufactured  with  enviable  success  in 
our  own  country.  Doubtless  one  of  the  most 
interesting  glove  mills  to  visit  is  a  well- 
known  factory  located  in  the  Alleghany 
industrial  district  of  Pennsylvania,  which, 
though  occupying  a  comparatively  small  area, 
is  wonderfully  complete  and  efficient,  and 
turns  out  by  the  latest  approved  methods  a 
large  output  of  high  class  Milanaise  gloves. 
The  president  of  this  company,  who  is  hands, 
feet  and  brains  to  his  mill — also  a  practical 
inventor  and  a  lover  of  machines — has  made 
it  possible,  by  courteous  attention  to  every 
requirement  of  the  trade,  to  place  upon  the 
market  a  superior  product,  and  to  win 
and  hold  the  confidence  of  his  business 
associates. 

A  visit  to  this  particular  mill  is  doubly 
affording  to  the  student  of  glove-making 
because  here  they  weave  and  dye  their  own 
silk  fabric.  We  are  able  to  follow  the 
process  from  a  skein  of  raw  silk  to  the  finished 
glove  in  all  its  accuracy  and  beauty.  Every 
step  in  its  evolution  is  attended  with  ad- 
mirable carefulness  and  despatch — the  glove 
emerging  almost  miraculously  from  the  crude 
material  as  it  is  passed  swiftly  from  one 
operator  to  another,  each  worker  contribut- 
ing one  factor  more  to  its  final  perfection. 

The  silk  strand  arrives  "in  the  raw"  from 
Japan,  packed  in  straw  bales,  and  might 
easily  be  mistaken  for  a  shipment  of  tea.  In 
this  state  the  silk  resembles  fine  white  hair 
or,  even  more  closely,  spun  sugar.  It  is  sent 
in  quantities,  as  needed,  to  the  spinners,  and 
on    its    return    is    put    through    a    boiling 


Gloves  of  the  Hour  111 

process     to     remove     a     gummy     substance 
inherent  in  the  crude  product. 

The  strand  is  now  ready  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  the  machines.  First  of  all, 
it  must  be  wound  by  machinery  upon  spools. 
This  process  is  known,  simply,  as  the  wind- 
ing process.  The  neatty,  evenly  wound  silk  is 
then  conveniently  fed  from  the  spools  onto 
other  machines  which  transform  it  into  the 
warp  or  foundation  for  the  silk  fabric.  These 
warps  vary  greatly  in  width — some  being 
like  ribbons,  measuring  about  six  inches 
across,  others  measuring  144  and  even  1C8 
inches.  They  are  delicate  webs  of  shining 
silk  with  the  threads  running  in  a  single 
direction — vertically,  to  be  exact. 

Weaving  machines  next  receive  the  warped 
silk.  Each  of  these  machines  is  equipped 
with  four  thousand  needles,  or  twenty-eight 
needles  to  every  inch,  which  knit  up  the 
silken  web  into  cloth.  As  fast  as  woven,  it 
is  dropped  and  rolled  upon  a  long  cylinder; 
it  is  very  soft  and  satiny  and  astonishingly 
resembles  a  mass  of  molasses  candy  which 
has  been  "pulled"  until  it  is  snowy  white  and 
of  glistening  smoothness.  It  is  now  ready  to 
be  dyed.  The  dyeing  is  one  of  the  few 
primitive  steps  retained  in  the  entire  process. 
This  operation  is  performed  by  hand,  and 
the  material  is  lifted  and  worked  on  long 
sticks  to  ensure  evenness  of  color.  No 
machine  is  capable  of  giving  such  satisfac- 
tory results. 

The  final  step  in  preparing  the  fabric, 
however— the  dressing  or  finishing— is  done 
by  means  of  an  elaborate  machine,  consisting 
of  sets  of  copper  cylinders  or  rollers.    The 


112  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

wet,  freshly  dyed  silk  cloth  is  brought  to  the 
dressing  machine  a  hopeless  looking  mass  of 
soppiness  and  wrinkles.  It  is  rolled  upon  a 
large  cylinder  which  passes  it  on  to  one 
smaller  in  diameter,  which,  in  turn,  feeds  it 
off  onto  a  rectangular  frame  provided  with 
rows  of  sharp  points,  like  pin  points,  on  both 
edges.  Between  these  points  the  silk  is 
stretched  as  tight  as  the  inflated  skin  of  a 
balloon.  The  frame  bearing  the  taut  silk  is 
then  carried  through  a  long,  narrow,  heated 
tent,  some  twelve  feet  in  extent.  It  emerges 
at  the  opposite  end,  thoroughly  pressed, 
smooth  and  finished,  and  is  again  rolled  on 
cylinders  with  layers  of  paper  between  the 
breadths  of  the  silk,  in  case  the  fabric  may 
still  be  a  trifle  damp,  in  order  to  ensure  the 
perfection  of  the  silk. 

The  Milanaise  or  Italian  silk  is  now  ready 
for  the  glove  makers.  First  it  passes  into  the 
hands  of  the  cutters,  who  block  out  and  cut 
by  means  of  dies  pieces  of  silk  of  the  right 
size  for  each  glove.  These  dies  vary  accord- 
ing to  the  many  different  sizes  of  gloves. 
Another  set  of  cutters  takes  these  pieces  and 
places  them  in  punches  Avhich  mechanically 
cut  out  the  shapes  of  the  fingers  and  the  rein- 
forcements for  the  tips  of  the  first  three 
fingers.  These  reinforcements  hang  onto  the 
ends  of  the  fingers.  Still  other  cutters  cut 
out  gussets,  fourchettes  and  thumbs  from 
scraps  of  the  silk  cloth,  to  be  fitted  into  the 
glove  when  it  is  sewn  together  later.  In  this 
way  every  morsel  of  the  silk  is  utilized. 

Before  the  gloves  at  this  stage  are  handed 
over  to  the  sewers  they  are  stamped  in  a 
press  with  the  name  of  the  company  which 


Gloves  of  the  Hour  113 

has  ordered  them  for  its  trade.  Aluminum 
leaf  is  used  in  this  process,  and  silver  letter- 
ing is  the  result. 

Women  seated  at  sewing  machines  now 
receive  the  cut,  marked  gloves,  and  the  first 
step  toward  joining  their  many  parts  con- 
sists in  stitching  the  reinforcements  onto  the 
ends  of  the  fingers.  This,  of  course,  gives 
the  double  finger  tip  and  is  a  protection 
against  wear.  The  backs  of  the  gloves  next 
are  finished  with  fancv  embroiderv  stitcherv. 
In  the  simplest  and  cheapest  gloves  this  is 
accomplished  by  a  single  operation.  But  as 
gloves  rise  in  quality  and  price,  the  em- 
broidered backs  become  more  elaborate. 

The  thumbs  now  are  stitched  together 
individually  and  then  are  put  into  the  glove 
itself.  The  next  set  of  sewers  stitch  in  the 
fourchettes — or  sections  forming  the  sides  of 
the  fingers — seam  up  all  the  fingers,  and  close 
up  the  long  seam  running  from  end  to  end  of 
the  glove.  Passing  into  other  hands,  the 
openings  at  the  wrists  are  skilfully  bound 
and  stiffened,  or  faced.  Trimmers  clip  off  all 
superfluous  silk  in  the  seams  and  turn  the 
gloves  right  side  out  on  wooden  sticks.  The 
wrists  are  then  neatly  hemmed.  Clasps  of 
metal,  pearl,  or  covered  with  the  silk,  are 
stamped  into  the  wrist  facings  by  machinery 
— and  the  glove  is  ready  for  the  examiner. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  important  steps  in 
the  whole  process.  It  guarantees  the  perfect 
condition  of  every  pair  of  gloves  which  leaves 
this  factory,  and  ensures  the  merchant  and 
his  customer  against  any  possibility  of  fraud 
in  handling  or  buying  the  output  of  this 
company.    The  finished  glove  is  turned  on  a 


114  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

stick  resembling  the  glove  stretcher  com- 
monly used  at  the  counter;  every  seam  and 
crevice  is  carefully  tested  and  scrutinized.  If 
no  flaw  is  discovered  the  glove  is  pronounced 
ready  for  the  packing  room. 

In  order  that  the  goods  may  present  the 
finest  appearance  possible  and  that  it  may 
be  restored  to  perfect  freshness  and  shapeli- 
ness after  passing  through  so  many  hands  in 
the  making,  the  gloves  are  placed  on  wooden 
forms  in  the  packing  room  and  enclosed  in  a 
heated  box  for  from  six  to  seven  minutes. 
They  are  then  taken  out,  slipped  off  the  forms, 
and  given  to  operators  who  stitch  them 
together  in  pairs,  label  and  tie  them,  and 
pack  them  in  pasteboard  boxes  according  to 
size  and  color.  The  finished  glove  is  now 
ready  to  be  placed  on  sale,  and  is  fit  to 
tempt  the  most  discriminating  customer  of 
either  sex. 

But  while  the  silk  glove  of  recent  years 
has  become  a  truly  progressive  industry,  let 
it  not  be  imagined  that  the  kid  glove  to-day 
is  resting  upon  its  laurels — great  as  its  his- 
torical prestige  certainly  is!  The  methods 
of  kid  glove  manufacture  are  being  tirelessly 
improved  upon;  the  product  itself  is  of  finer 
grade  than  ever  before,  it  presents  greater 
variety,  it  is  all  the  time  more  cleverly 
adapted  to  modern  uses.  But  only  the 
designer  of  new  styles  in  this  important  phase 
of  apparel  can  fully  appreciate  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  glove  art  as  they  open  before  him 
at  the  present  hour. 

The  designer  of  French  kid  gloves,  it  goes 
without  saying,  is  an  artist.  He  may  not  be 
a  Frenchman,  however.    It  is  a  mistake  to 


Gloves  of  the  Hour  1 1  5 

suppose  that  all  the  originality  and  all  the 
inspiration  to  create  a  beautiful  article  of 
dress,  acceptable  to  the  fastidious  of  every 
land,  must  be  of  French  origin.  French 
influence,  to  be  sure,  plays  an  invaluable  part 
in  the  education  of  such  artists;  but  an 
American,  with  long  training  in  the  glove 
business,  may  have  both  the  taste  and  the 
talent  to  invent  glove  masterpieces  which 
will  be  eagerly  adopted,  not  only  in  New  York, 
but  also  in  Paris.  A  few  American  experts 
actually  have  accomplished  this  thing,  and 
their  work  is  not  to  be  lightly  mentioned  and 
passed  over.  It  deserves  our  very  special 
attention. 

An  artist  who  designs  kid  gloves,  first  of 
all  has  the  feeling  for  gloves  as  gloves.  His 
object  is  to  originate  something  beautiful  in 
glove  form.  Next,  he  knows  the  technique  of 
glove-making  from  A  to  Z,  just  as  the  painter 
knows  his  pigments,  the  laws  of  color  and  of 
drawing.  The  glove  designer  realizes  the 
physical  limitations  of  his  art,  and  equally 
he  divines  the  developments  of  which  that  art 
is  susceptible.  He  is  thoroughly  familiar 
with  the  materials  at  his  disposal,  with  the 
machines  and  the  skilled  workers  he  must 
employ  to  execute  his  ideas. 

At  the  same  time,  he  has  to  be  something 
of  a  journalist;  he  must  keep  his  finger  on  the 
public  pulse,  and  be  able  to  prophesy  what 
styles  men,  and  especially  women,  will  take 
kindly  to  wearing  a  season  hence.  Gloves, 
like  everything  else  in  dress,  must  satisfy  the 
demands  of  fashion.  They  must  change 
because  life  itself  is  change.  They  must 
adapt  themselves  to  the  costumes  the  shops 


116  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

are  shoAving,  to  the  mode  of  the  hour,  the 
latest  conception  of  smartness  and  good  taste. 

In  the  hands  of  the  designer  of  practical 
experience,  who  is  also  an  artist,  this  becomes 
possible.  Yet,  to  most  people,  gloves  would 
appear  a  very  limited  field  for  the  expres- 
sion of  originality!  Examine,  then,  some  of 
the  new  designs  for  this  year  and  season. 
They  will  answer  the  question  whether  so 
simple  and  necessarily  uniform  an  article  as 
the  modern  glove  is  capable  of  much  artistic 
variation,  and  from  them  also  we  can  learn 
how  such  novelties  are  evolved. 

Every  large  glove  company  has  its  own 
classical  models — that  is,  there  are  certain 
standard  styles  of  kid  gloves  of  the  best 
manufacture  which  virtually  do  not  change 
from  season  to  season.  These  have  names, 
which  are  as  well  known  in  the  glove  trade 
as  the  names  of  real  laces,  of  old,  established 
design,  to  exporters  and  importers  of  that 
delightful  commodity.  For  instance,  in  a 
famous  glove  shop  on  Fifth  Avenue,  New 
York,  we  are  introduced  to  three  classical 
styles — the  Florine,  the  Seville  and  the  Isere. 
These  are  all  fine  French  gloves,  of  a  cut 
and  finish  familiar  to  many  of  us.  They  are 
the  foundation  of  all  the  other  styles, 
which  are  simply  clever  variations  of  these 
three. 

For  example,  the  Florine,  a  simple,  over- 
seam  glove,  acquires  a  one-inch  cuff  of  a  con- 
trasting color — and  with  it  the  romantic  title 
of  Bandallette.     Manv  beautiful  color  com- 

t/ 

binations  mav  be  seen  in  the  new  Bandallette 

%j 

— alabaster  with  a  brown  cuff,  canarv  with 
white,  gunmetal  with  pale  grey. 


Gloves  of  the  Hour  117 

The  Seville  is  distinguished  by  its  crochet- 
embroidered  backs,  affording  a  much  heavier 
finish  than  the  stitching  which  decorates  the 
Florine  and  the  Isere.  A  deeply  fringed  cuff 
of  kid  is  added — and  lo,  the  Spanish  cavalier 
becomes  a  knight  of  quite  another  cycle! 
Hiawatha,  this  picturesquely  slashed  glove 
of  purely  American  inspiration  is  called — 
most  reminiscent  of  the  fringed  decorations 
of  aboriginal  chieftains  is  the  odd  device 
which  gives  it  its  new-world  bizarrerie  and 
flavor.  It  is  especially  striking  in  pure  white 
and  black. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  two-inch  cuff  sport- 
ing large  diamonds  of  white  kid  set  in  a  black 
border — or  the  colors  mav  be  reversed — is 
known  as  the  Van  Dyck,  and  doubtless  has 
caught  something  of  the  character  of  early 
Flemish  design.  The  Van  Metor  may  be 
mentioned  as  similar.  This  is  a  particularly 
beautiful  glove  when  made  in  white  kid, 
stitched  with  black,  and  adorned  with  white 
cuffs,  scalloped  or  pinked,  and  appliqued 
with  black  kid  cut  in  deep,  sharp  points  which 
taper  upward. 

The  Isere  is  especially  adapted  for  varia- 
tions of  a  dainty,  delicate  character.  While 
the  Seville  lends  itself  best  to  two-toned 
embroidery  in  handsome,  heavy  effects,  on 
the  backs,  the  Isere  is  displaying  just  now  on 
a  white  kid  model  rows  of  fine,  black  feather 
stitching  between  slender  lines  of  plain 
stitching. 

Another  distinguished  glove,  the  work  of 
the  same  expert  designer,  is  the  Fielder, 
vaguely  reminiscent  of  an  old  English  hunt- 
ing glove.    In  black,  with  a  very  long  wrist, 


118  Gloves,  Past  and  Present 

the  striking  feature  of  the  Fielder  is  the  deep, 
fan-shaped  piece  of  white  set  into  the  wrist 
on  the  under  side;  it  also  fastens  with  a 
cleverly  adjusted  strap,  clasped  with  a  white 
pearl  fastener.    This  is  a  very  dashing  glove. 

A  black  glace  with  white  stitching  has  a 
fancy  embroidered  design  on  the  back  which 
gives  to  it  its  title  of  Dagger.  The  dagger 
is  delightfully  managed  in  conventionalized 
form,  and  reminds  one  of  the  adornments  on 
crested  gloves  of  ancient  days. 

Nothing  could  be  more  exquisite  than  the 
new  gloves  embroidered  with  bow-knots.  If 
they  are  black,  the  bow-knots  are  in  white; 
if  white,  the  graceful  design  is  embroidered 
in  black.  Either  effect  is  charming;  but  the 
white  gloves  seem  redolent  of  old  valentine 
customs,  when  the  true  lovers'  knot  might 
well  have  appeared  upon  a  perfumed  pair  of 
dainty  gift  gloves  such  as  these.  The  wrists 
also  are  parti-colored,  gaily  striped  in  white 
and  black,  like  Pierrette. 

A  very  long-wristed,  modish  glove  is  the 
Garnett,  in  white  kid,  with  four  black  straps 
confining  the  fulness  of  the  flaring  cuff  which 
is  lined  with  black,  and  all  the  stitching  black. 
Indeed,  while  delicate  tints  are  seen  in  many 
of  the  novelties,  the  effectiveness  of  the  new 
designs  is  best  grasped  in  the  black  and  white 
combinations.  In  any  case,  mere  description 
gives  little  or  no  notion  of  the  many  interest- 
ing, beautiful  styles  which  are  appearing — 
nor  of  how  much  imagination  and  invention 
goes  into  the  devising  of  these  styles  from 
season  to  season. 

There  is  a  world  of  comfort,  too,  in  the 
thought  that  while  such  artists  as  these  con- 


Gloves  of  the  Hour  119 

tinue  to  concern  themselves  with  gloves  as  a 
thing  of  beauty — gloves  for  gloves'  sake — we 
may  rest  assured  that  commercialism  will  not 
devour  the  more  subtle  distinctions  of  life. 
If  such  a  trifle,  let  us  say,  as  our  gloves  is 
being  zealouly  guarded  and  saved  to  the 
canons  of  good  taste,  certainly  we  may  hope 
to  retain  a  true  sense  of  elegance,  and  our 
requirements  in  respect  to  the  little  niceties 
which  make  up  the  general  deportment  of  a 
people  shall  be  continually  elevated. 

If  the  foregoing  description  of  the  gloves 
of  the  hour  may  have  seemed  redundant,  or 
of  too  ephemeral  interest,  to  the  reader,  let 
him  pause  and  reflect  that,  after  all,  we  are 
ourselves  makers  of  glove  history ;  and  it  may 
be  that  glove  lovers  of  the  future  will  be  as 
grateful  to  find  on  record  the  gloves  of  our 
times,  as  we  have  been  gratified  to  rediscover 
the  glove  annals  of  remote  periods  of  human 
history. 


FINIS 


& 


\ 


3 


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